Psychological Explanations for Schizophrenia Flashcards
Family Dysfunction - A01
- Bateson et al. (1956) suggested the double bind theory, which suggests that children who frequently receive contradictory messages from their parents are more likely to develop
schizophrenia.
-For example, parents who say they care whilst appearing critical or who express love whilst appearing angry.
-They did not believe that schizophrenia was a disease.
-They believed that schizophrenia was a result of social pressures from life.
- Prolonged exposure to such interactions prevents the development of an internally coherent construction of reality;
in the long run, this manifests itself as typically schizophrenic symptoms such as flattening affect, delusions and hallucinations, incoherent
thinking and speaking, and in some cases paranoia.
High Expressed Emotion – A01
- Expressed emotion is the level of emotion, in particular negative emotion, expressed towards a patient by their carers.
High EE contains several elements:
-Verbal criticism of the patient, occasionally accompanied by violence.
-Hostility towards the patient, including anger and rejection.
- Emotional over-involvement in the life of the patient, including needless self-sacrifice.
-These high levels of expressed emotion in carers directed towards the patient are a serious source of stress for the patient.
- This is primarily an explanation for relapse in patients with
schizophrenia. However, it has also been suggested that it may be a source of stress that can trigger the onset of schizophrenia in a person who is already vulnerable, for example, due to
their genetic make-up.
A03 - Research - Berger + Liem
-Berger found that schizophrenics reported a higher recall of double bind statements by their mothers than non-schizophrenics.
- This evidence may not be reliable as patients’
retrospective self-report data may be affected by their schizophrenia and have been distorted over time.
-Contrastingly, Liem (1974) measured patterns of parental
communication in families with a schizophrenic child and found no difference compared with normal families.
- Hence, whilst it seems common sense to suggest that contradictory
parental childhood experiences are likely to play a role in the onset of SZ, the role of family dysfunction and its influence and importance is unclear.
A03 - Linzen
- found SZ patients returning to a family with high EE are about four times more likely to relapse than a patient whose family is low in EE.
- However, not all patients who live in high EE families relapse, and not all patients who live in low EE homes avoid relapse.
-Altorfer et al (1998) found that 25% of the patients showed no biological responses to stressful comments from their relatives.
-Maybe, high EE is only effective in the development
of schizophrenia when the child is also biologically predisposed.
- This shows that not all patients are equally vulnerable to high levels of expressed emotion within the family
environment, questioning the comprehensiveness of the family dysfunction explanation.
A03 - Women and Men - Read Et al
-Some evidence suggests that difficult family relationships in childhood are associated with increased risk of schizophrenia in adulthood.
-Read et al. (2005) reviewed 46 studies of child
abuse and schizophrenia and concluded that 69% of adult women in-patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia had a history of physical abuse, sexual abuse or both in childhood.
- For men the figure was 59%. There is thus a large body of evidence linking family dysfunction
to schizophrenia.
- However, most of this evidence gathered the child’s experiences after the development of schizophrenia, and the schizophrenia may have distorted patients’ recall of
childhood experiences. - Correlation studies also only establish and link and do not establish
cause and effect, limiting the family dysfunction explanation as conclusive.
