psychological explanations for schizophrenia

Question 1

schizophrenogenic mother
fromm-reichmann

Answer 1

• schizophrenogenic mother causes schizophrenia
  -these mothers were said to be cold, rejecting, overprotective, moralistic about sex, and fearful of intimacy
• the distrust, resentfulness and instability caused by such a parent was thought to induce a schizophrenic reaction

Question 2

double bind theory
bateson

Answer 2

• parents often communicate contradictory and confusing messages to to children, leading to the children developing distorted views of the world
• the ‘double bind’ was a position in which a child might feel compelled both to act and not act a certain way at the same time

Question 3

berger (1965)

Answer 3

found that schizophrenics reported a higher recall of double bind statements by their mothers than non- schizophrenics

Question 4

liem (1994)

Answer 4

found no differences in the patterns of parental communication

Question 5

expressed emotion

Answer 5

negative family communication style that involves:
- critical comments through both tone and content, occasionally accompanied by violence
- hostility toward the patient, involving anger and rejection
- emotional over-involvement, including needless self-sacrifice

Question 6

support for family dysfunction as a risk factor

Answer 6

read (2005) - reviewed 46 studies of child abuse and schizophrenia in adulthood and concluded that 69% of adult in-patients had a history of child abuse- for men it was 59%
– some evidence that adults with insecure attachments to their primary caregiver are more likely to develop schizophrenia

Question 7

weak evidence for family based explanations

Answer 7

• information (about childhood) is gathered after the symptoms have developed, therefore the schizophrenia might have distorted the patients recall of childhood - creates serious problem of validity
• dysfunctional family explanations have historically led to parent-blaming… parents who have already suffered at seeing their child’s descent into schizophrenia undergo further trauma by receiving blame for the condition.

Question 8

dysfunctional thought processes
- frith

Answer 8

• schizophrenics fail to monitor their own thoughts correctly misattributing them to the outside world
• schizophrenics often have impaired metarepresentation
  i.e hearing voices is their own inner speech being misinterpreted

Question 9

evidence supporting dysfunctional thought processes

Answer 9

• striling (1998) : investigated the ability of patients being able to perform the stroop test, showing difficulty suppressing thoughts
• frith (1992) : investigated performance on schizophrenics with a range of theory of mind tasks

Question 10

abu-akel (1999)

Answer 10

• suggests they have a hyper theory of mind, the over attribution of thoughts
• they may assume another person knows what they know and believes what they believe, without justification

Question 11

auditory selective attention

Answer 11

the process by which the brain selects what sounds to respond to

Question 12

auditory selective impairment

Answer 12

• the negative symptoms of schizophrenia may be the result of cognitive strategies used by the individual to keep mental stimulation to a manageable level
• this happens when people experience potentially over-whelming levels of information from the external world and their inner world - may be due to auditory selective attention impairment

Question 13

pickering (1981)

Answer 13

• proposed that catatonic schizophrenia may be caused by a breakdown in auditory selective attention: this would make social interaction increasingly difficult, as the information is overloaded with auditory information
• pickering believes that catatonic schizophrenics have no choice but to withdraw from the world and keep sensory stimulation at a manageable level

Question 14

eval - compatibility with biological explanations

Answer 14

• cognitive explanation is compatible with biological explanation as role of biological factors are emphasised - genes are inherited and are responsible for dysfunctional thinking
• further proposed that schizophrenics may experience neurological abnormalities which cause cognitive difficulties in attention, communication and dealing with potentially overwhelming amounts of information

Question 15

eval - empirical evidence

Answer 15

• empirical evidence to support the proposal that cognitive processes in people with schiz are different to those of non-schiz
• if dysfunctional thought processing is said to be the root cause of the disorder then it would follow that childhood difficulties in information processing (e.g dyslexia) would correlate with the later onset of schizophrenia - however no scientific link to support this link