Psychological explanations for schizophrenia Flashcards
Psychological explanations for schizophrenia
parts
Psychological explanations for schizophrenia
└Schizophrenogenic mother, Double-bind theory , Expressed emotion and schizophrenia
Cognitive explanations
└Metarepresentation , Central control
Family dysfunction
definition
abnormal processes within a family
└e.g. poor family communication, cold parenting, high levels of expressed emotion
└=risk factors for both the development and maintenance of schizophrenia
Family dysfunction
parts
Schizophrenogenic mother- Frieda Fromm-Reichman (1948)
Double-bind theory - Gregory Bateson et al (1972)
Expressed emotion and schizophrenia
Family dysfunction
Schizophrenogenic mother
└Frieda Fromm-Reichman (1948)
└psychodynamic explanation for schizophrenia
└based on accounts from her patients childhoods
└the mother is cold, rejecting and controlling
└tends to create a family climate characterised by tension and secrecy
└leads to distrust →develops to paranoid delusions (belief that one is being persecuted by another person) →schizophrenia
Family dysfunction
Double-bind theory
└Gregory Bateson et al (1972)
└role of communication style within a family
└risk factor
└developing child regularly finds themselves trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing, but receive mixed messages on what this is, but feel unable to comment on unfairness of situation or to seek clarification
└when get it wrong (which is often)- punished by withdrawal of love 0.
└=they have an understanding of the world as being confusing and dangerous → symptoms like disorganised thinking and paranoid delusions
Family dysfunction
Expressed emotion and schizophrenia
└expressed emotion: the level of negative emotion expressed towards a patient by their carers- including:
└verbal criticism of patient (+occasionally violence)
└hostility towards patient (e.g. anger and rejection)
└emotional over-involvement in the life of the patient (e.g. needless self-sacrifice)
└high EE= serious source of stress for patient
└primarily explanation for relapse of schizophrenia
└could trigger onset of schizophrenia in a person already vulnerable
└(diathesis-stress model)
Cognitive explanations
parts
Christopher Frith et al (1992)-
Metarepresentation
Central control
Cognitive explanations
definition
explanations that focus on mental processes
└e.g. thinking, language and attention
└dysfunctional through processing: information processing that is not functioning normally and produces undesirable consequences
Cognitive explanations
Metarepresentation
└the cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour
└allows us insight into own intentions and goals
└allows us to interpret actions of others
└dysfunction in metarepresentation
└disrupts our ability to recognise our own actions and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than someone else
└explains audio hallucinations and delusions like thought insertion
Cognitive explanations
Central control
└the cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions instead
└disorganised speech and thought disorder explained
└inability to supress automatic thoughts and speech triggered by other thoughts
Psychological explanations for schizophrenia
strengths
summary
Support for family dysfunction as a risk factor - Read et al (2005), Berry et al (2008), TieStirling et al, Tienari et al
Strong evidence for dysfunctional information processing - Stirling et al (2006)
Psychological explanations for schizophrenia
strengths
Support for family dysfunction as a risk factor
└Read et al (2005)
└viewed 46 studies of child abuse and schizophrenia
└69% adult women in-patients with schizophrenia had history of physical/sexual abuse in childhood
└59% males
└Berry et al (2008)
└adults with insecure attachments to primary carer more likely to have schizophrenia
└weakness: most evidence gathered after development of symptoms
└schizophrenia may have distorted patients recall of childhood experiences
└reduces validity
└Tienari et al (?)
└e.g. of study carried out prospectively (followed up children following childhood experience to see if it predicted any adult characteristics)
└=increase validity
└however not many studies, and inconsistent results in studies
Psychological explanations for schizophrenia
strengths
Strong evidence for dysfunctional information processing
└ Stirling et al (2006)
└compared 30 patients with schizophrenia with 18 controls
└range of cognitive tests e.g. stroop test- where participants have to name colours of words while supressing the impulse to read the words
└patients tool over twice as long to name colour of words
└=in line with his theory of central control dysfunction
└limitation: although links between symptoms and faulty cognition are clear but doesn’t explain origins of cognitions/schizophrenia
└cognitive theories can explain proximal causes of schizophrenia (what causes current symptoms) but not the distal causes (origins of the condition)
Psychological explanations for schizophrenia
limitations
summary
Weak evidence for family-based explanations- Harrington (2012)
Unclear direction of causality
Evidence for biological factors not adequately considered
Psychological explanations for schizophrenia
limitations
Weak evidence for family-based explanations
└almost no evidence to support importance of schizophrenagenic mother or double bind
└both theories based on clinical observation of patients
└Harrington (2012)
└assessed personality of patients mothers for ‘crazy-making characteristicts’
└led to parent-blaming
└parents blamed for condition (trauma) after seeing child suffer and caring for them
└shift in 1980s from hospital to community care (e.g. parental care) led to decline of double bind and schizophrenogenic mother and double bind theories
└parents no longer tolerated them
