Psychological explanations for schizophrenia

Question 1

What are 2 psychological explanations for schizophrenia??

Answer 1

1. Family dysfunction
2. Cognitive explanation

Question 2

What is family dysfunction?

Answer 2

Abnormal processes within a family which act as risk factors for the development and maintenance of schizophrenia.

Question 3

What are three risk factors within the family which could trigger schizophrenia?

Answer 3

1. Double bind theory- poor communication
2. The schizophrenogenic mother- cold parenting
3. Expressed emotion- high levels of expressed, negative emotion

Question 4

What is the double bind theory?

Answer 4

Children are given conflicting messages from parents e.g. mother telling son she loves him and turning away in disgust= confusion in child

Question 5

How can the double-bind theory lead to schizophrenia?

Answer 5

Mixed messages prevent development of internally coherent construction of reality= Can lead to psychosis

Question 6

What traits does a schizophrenogenic mother have and how can this lead to schizophrenia?

Answer 6

Cold, rejecting and controlling= climate of tensions and secrecy which leads to distrust which could then lead to paranoid delusions

Question 7

What is expressed emotion and how is it linked to schizophrenia?

Answer 7

Family communication style- high levels of negative emotions are expressed leading to hostile climate= higher relapse rates

Question 8

What is the cognitive explanation for schizophrenia?

Answer 8

Proposes that abnormalities in a person’s thought processes (dysfunctional thought processing) are a key component of schizophrenia.

Question 9

What are two kinds of dysfunctional thought processing?

Answer 9

1. Dysfunction in metarepresentation= hallucinations and delusions
2. Dysfunction in central control= disorganised speech

Question 10

How does dysfunction in our metarepresentation lead to schizophrenic symptoms?

Answer 10

Disrupts our ability to recognise our own actions and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than someone else= hallucinations and delusions

Question 11

How does dysfunction in our central control lead to schizophrenic symptoms?

Answer 11

Inability to suppress automatic thoughts and speech triggered by other thoughts- causes disorganised speech and thought disorder

Question 12

What is the strength of family dysfunction?

Answer 12

Support for family dysfunction as a risk factor:
Read et al. (2005)- reviewed 46 studies of child abuse and schizophrenia. Found that 69% of adult women and 59% of male in-patients with schizophrenia had a history of physical abuse, sexual abuse or both.
COUNTER-ARGUMENT: Information about childhood experiences was gathered after the development of symptoms and the schizophrenia may have distorted patients’ recall of childhood experiences. Brings into question the validity of the results.

Question 13

What are the two limitations of family dysfunction?

Answer 13

Lacks support:
Although there is plenty of evidence supporting the idea that childhood family-based stress is associated with schizophrenia, there is almost none for the traditional family-based theories such as the schizophrenogenic mother and double bind.
These theories are based on observations and informal assessments of patients’ mothers’ personalities, but not systematic evidence.

Socially sensitive:
The idea that family dysfunction can be causing the development of schizophrenia can lead to parent-blaming. Mothers seem to be particularly blamed (schizophrenogenic mother). This places an unfair burden on the mother especially after having to watch their child experience schizophrenic symptoms and take responsibility for their care- to be blamed on top of this could cause significant distress.

Question 14

What are the two strengths of cognitive explanations?

Answer 14

Supporting evidence for dysfunctional information processing:
Stirling et al. (2006)- compared patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia with non-patient controls on a range of cognitive tasks, including the Stroop Test. Participants have to name the ink colours of coloured words, suppressing the impulse to read the words. They found that patients took over twice as long to name the ink colours as the control group.
This supports the idea that people with schizophrenia have a dysfunction in their central control.

Support from success of cognitive therapies:
The claim that the symptoms of schizophrenia have their origin in faulty cognition is reinforced by the success of cognitive-based therapies for schizophrenia.
The effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBTp) has been demonstrated in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) review of treatments for schizophrenia. This review found consistent evidence that, when compared with treatment by antipsychotic medication, CBT was more effective in reducing symptom severity and improving levels of social functioning.

Question 15

What is the limitation for cognitive explanations?

Answer 15

Weak evidence for double-bind theory:
There is very limited evidence to support the importance of the double-bind theory in the development of schizophrenia.
Patterns of parental communication in families with a schizophrenic child were measured and found no difference when compared to normal families.
COUNTER-ARGUMENT: Despite this limited research, there has been some value in the double-bind theory. It has led to the development of family therapy, which has proved very effective in the treatment of schizophrenia.