psychological explanations for schizophrenia

Question 1

the schizophrenogenic mother

Answer 1

• Fromm - Reichmann (1948)
• schizophrenia causing
• schizophrenogenic mother is cold, rejecting and controlling
• creates a family climate characterised by tension and secrecy
• leads to distrust that later develops into paranoid delusions

Question 2

double bind theory

Answer 2

• Bateson et al (1972)
• emphasised the role of communication style within a family
• child regularly finds themselves trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing but receive mixed messages on what that is
• feel unable to comment on the unfairness of the situation or seek clarification
• when they get it wrong the child is punished by the withdrawal of love
• leaves them with the understanding of the world as confusing and dangerous reflected in symptoms like disorganised thinking and paranoid delusions
• just a risk factor

Question 3

expressed emotion

Answer 3

• the level of negative emotion expressed towards a person with schizophrenia by their carars
• verbal criticism of the person
• hostility towards the person
• emotional overinveloment in the life of the person
• serious source of stress
• explanation for relapse in people with schizophrenia

Question 4

Dysfunctional thinking

Answer 4

reduced thought processing in the ventral striatun is associated with negative symptoms
- reduced processing of information in the temporal and cinguate gyri is associated with hallucinations
- lower than usual level of information processing suggests that cognition is likely to be impaired

Question 5

metarepresentation dysfunction

Answer 5

• frith et al (1992) identified 2 kinds of dysfunctional thought processes
• metarepesentations is the cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour
• allows us insight into our own intentions and goals and interpret the actions of others
• dysfunction in metarepesentation would disrupt our ability to recognise our own action and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than someone else
• explain hallucinations of hearing voices and delusions like thought insertions

Question 6

cognitive control dysfunction

Answer 6

• frith et al identified issues with the cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions
• speech poverty and thought disorder could result from the inability to suppress automatic thought and speech triggered by other thoughts

Question 7

strength of cognitive explanations

Answer 7

1. research support
   - stirling et al (2006) compared performance on cognitive task in in 30 people with schizophrenia
   - stoop task where participants had the name the font colours of colour words do had to suppress the tendency to read the word out-loud
   - people with schizophrenia took twice as long to name the font colours
   - means that the cognitive processing of people with schizophrenia is impaired

Question 8

limitations of cognitive explanations

Answer 8

1. a proximal explanation
   - only explains the proximal origins of symptoms
   - explain why it is happening right now to produce symptoms but does not focus on what initially caused the condition
   - possible distal explanations are genetic and family dysfunctions