psychological explanations for schizophrenia

Question 1

What are the psychological explanations for schizophrenia?

Answer 1

-dysfunctional thinking
-dysfunctional thought processing
-family dysfunction

Question 2

What are the elements of ‘family dysfunction’ in the psychological explanation of schizophrenia?

Answer 2

-double-bind
-schizophrenogenic mother
-expressed emotion

Question 3

What are the characteristics of the schizophrenogenic mother?

Answer 3

-cold
-rejecting
-controlling

Question 4

What is the family climate for someone with a schizophrenogenic mother?

Answer 4

-characterized by tension and secrecy

Question 5

What can a schizophrenogenic mother lead to?

Answer 5

-distrust
-paranoid delusions
-ultimately schizophrenia

Question 6

Who proposed dysfunctional thought processing as a psychological explanation for schizophrenia?

Answer 6

-Firth 1992

Question 7

What are the two elements of dysfunctional thought processing?

Answer 7

-meta-representation
-central control

Question 8

What is meta-representation? What is it like for schizophrenics?

Answer 8

-cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour
-dysfunction leads to disrupted abilitu to recognise our own actions and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than someone else

Question 9

What symptoms are explained by dysfunctional metarepresentation?

Answer 9

-auditory hallucinations and delusions like thought insertion

Question 10

What is central control? What is it like for schizophrenics?

Answer 10

-cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions instead
-disorganized speech ands thought disorder could result from he inability to suppress automatic thoughts and speech triggered by other thoughts

Question 11

Who suggested double bind theory?

Answer 11

-Bateson

Question 12

What symptoms are caused by double-bind statements?

Answer 12

-disorganized thinking
-paranoid delusions
-social withdrawal/ avolition

Question 13

What is a double-bind statement?

Answer 13

contradictory messages from parents
-child frequently experiences situations where they fear doing the wrong thing and feel unable to comment on the unfairness of the situation or seek clarification due to mixed messages received

Question 14

Explain how double-bind can lead to the development of schizophrenia?

Answer 14

-leaves the child with an understanding of the world that is confusing and dangerous
-develops an incoherent version of reality

Question 15

How many types of double-bind are there?

Answer 15

2

Question 16

What are the two types of double-bind statement?

Answer 16

care/criticism
verbal/non-verbal

Question 17

Explain what a care/criticism double-bind is/ give an example?

Answer 17

-like a backhanded compliment, initially nice but actually insulting
-‘well done for passing that test in school- you actually did really well for once’

Question 18

Explain what a verbal/nonverbal double-bind is/ give an example?

Answer 18

-saying one thing but actually doing something else
-when a mother calls the daughter over for a hug, but stiffens when they actually embrace

Question 19

What is expressed emotion?

Answer 19

-negative emotional climate
-family communication style in which family of the schizophrenic patient talk about them in a critical or hostile manner, or in a way that indicates emotional over-involvement

Question 20

What psychological explanation for schizophrenia is primarily an explanation for relapse in sz patients?

Answer 20

expressed emotion

Question 21

What are the strengths of the psychological explanations for schizophrenia?

Answer 21

-evidence through success of cognitive therapies
-research support for family dysfunction
-evidence for dysfunctional thought processing

Question 22

What are the limitations of the psychological explanation for schizophrenia?

Answer 22

-counterpoint for research support
-socially sensitive

Question 23

Explain the limitation of psychological explanations for schizophrenia that it is socially sensitive?

Answer 23

-can lead to parent blaming
-mothers particularly blamed
-for parents having to watch their children suffer from symptoms of schizophrenia and taking responsibility of heir care, to be blamed ads insult t injury

Question 24

Explain the limitation of psychological explanations for schizophrenia that there is a counterpoint for research support?

Answer 24

-although there is plenty of evidence supporting the idea that childhood family-based stress is associated with adult schizophrenia, there is almost none to support the importance of traditional family-based therapies
-both the schizophrenogenic mother and double bind are based on clinical observation of people with schizophrenia and informal assessment of mothers’ personalities, but not systemic evidence
-this gives the theories low internal validity

Question 25

Explain the strength of psychological explanations for schizophrenia that there is research support for family dysfunction?

Answer 25

-indicators of family dysfunction include insecure attachment and exposure to childhood trauma, especially abuse -Read et al: -found adults with sz are disproportionately likely to have insecure attachment -69% of women and 59% of men had a history of physical and/or sexual abuse -this strongly suggests that family dysfunction makes people vulnerable to sz

Question 26

Explain the strength of psychological explanations for schizophrenia that there is evidence for dysfunctional thought processing?

Answer 26

-Stirling 2006 compared performance on a range of cognitive tasks in 20 people with schizophrenia compared to a control group of 30 without -tasks included the stroop task -as predicted by firth et al's central control theory, people with schizophrenia took twice as long on average to name the font-colours -this means that the cognitive processes of people with schizophrenia are impaired

Question 27

Explain the strength of psychological explanations for schizophrenia that there is evidence through success of cognitive therapies?

Answer 27

-Jauhar 2014 reviewed 24 studies of using CBT with schizophrenia -concluded that there is cleat evidence for small but significant effects on both positive and negative symptoms -Pontillo 2016 found reductions in frequency and severity of auditory hallucinations -NICE recommends CBT for schizophrenia -this means that both research and clinical evidence support benefits of CBT for schizophrenia