Psychological Explanations: Family Dysfunction

Question 1

What is the schizophrenogenic mother explanation and how does it lead to SZ

Answer 1

-cold, rejecting and controlling mother which creates family environ characterised by tension and secrecy, dad takes more passive role
-leads to distrust that later develops into paranoid delusions and ultimately SZ

Question 2

What is double-bind theory and how does it lead to SZ

Answer 2

-child regularly trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing but receive conflicting messages from their parents and what counts as wrong and too scared to ask. Often when get it wrong they are punished by withdrawal of love.
-leads them to learn the world is confusing and dangerous which causes disorganised thinking and delusions

Question 3

Expressed emotion explanation and how is leads to SZ

Answer 3

-level of mainly negative emotions expressed towards SZ patient including verbal criticism (can be violence), hostility towards them (anger and rejection), emotional over-involvement in their life (self sacrifice)
-this stress can trigger the onset of SZ in someone vulnerable (eg genetic), but mostly explanation used to describe how increased stress is more likely to lead to relapse

Question 4

What are central control errors and how does this lead to SZ (cognitive explanation)

Answer 4

Inability to suppress automatic thoughts/actions while performing deliberate actions
-leads to derailment of thought and disorganised speech/derailment of speech

Question 5

Evidence to support central control errors explanation

Answer 5

Stirling found people with SZ performed poorly on a range of cognitive tasks including stroop test-unable to suppress their automatic thoughts while performing a deliberate task

Question 6

What are metarepresentation errors and how does this lead to SZ (cognitive explanation)

Answer 6

Disruption in the ability to recognise our own actions and thoughts as being caused by ourselves rather than someone else
-being unable to recognise thoughts as our own may explain auditory hallucinations and thought insertions (type of delusion)

Question 7

Expand on strength that there is support for family dysfunction as a risk factor and however point

Answer 7

-evidence to suggest difficult family relationships in childhood are associated with increased risk of SZ in adulthood, adults with insecure attachments to their primary caregiver are more likely to have SZ
-info about childhood experiences was gathered after the development of symptoms and SZ may have distorted patients’ recall of childhood experiences= challenges validity

Question 8

Expand on limitation that family dysfunction explanation socially sensitive

Answer 8

-blames mother, additional stress for mothers who are already seeing their children experience SZ and can cause discrimination
-such theories need to be approached with caution to avoid discrimination and negative stereotypes

Question 9

Expand on limitation that explanation environmentally reductionist

Answer 9

Ignores biological factors eg genes, hyper/hypodopaminergia, brain structures
-not everyone with SZ has family dysfunction so must be other factors
-does not consider all factors

Question 10

Expand on limitation that cognitive explanation does not prove direction of causality

Answer 10

-remains unclear whether biological factors cause cognitive ones or other way round due to plasticity, do not know if cognitive factors are a cause or result of the neural correlates and abnormal neurotransmitter levels
-validity of both biological and psychological explanations for og cause of SZ is questionable unless we can untangle cause and effect it remains hard to say which explanation correct