Psychological Explanations For SZ

Question 1

What are the two main psychological explanations for SZ.

Answer 1

Family dysfunction and Cognitive explanations

Question 2

What is the family disfunction

Answer 2

Psychologists have attempted to link SZ to childhood and adult experiences of living in a dysfunctional family I.e. high poverty or domestic abuse, high criminal activity.

Question 3

What can be the three ways of explaining family dysfunction

Answer 3

1. Schizophrenogenic mother
2. Double blind theory
3. Express Emotion

Question 4

What is schizophrenogenic mother as a way of doing that shi

Answer 4

Reichmann proposed a psychodynamic explanation of SZ based on the accounts that she had head from her patients about their childhoods. She noted that many of her patients spoke about a particular type of parent which she called the schizophrenogenic mother. Characteristics of this type of mother is cold, rejecting and controlling and one who creates a climate of control and tension. This leads to child having lack of trust in relationships that later develop into paranoid delusions, thus ultimately developing SZ. In these families the father is quite passive and is not involved in child upbringing

Question 5

Double bind theory cuh

Answer 5

By Bateson et al: he agreed that family climate is important in the development of SZ but focused more on the actual family communication style. He suggested that children who receive frequent contradictory messages from their parents are more likely to develop SZ. Children have fear that they will be trapped in situations where they don’t know what’s right or wrong. I.e. a mother could say she loves don, but simultaneously showing a face of disgust 🫦. As a result child can’t seek clarification. Child therefore will feel confused about the world and see it as a dangerous place. This may be reflected in SZ symptoms like paranoid delusion. However Bateson did clarify that it is a risk factor, not the sole cause

Question 6

What is express emotions 👁👅👁

Answer 6

Expressed emotions is the level of emotion, particularly the negative emotion, expressed towards a patients by their careers. This is more responsible in maintaining the SZ rather than causing it. It has several parts:

• verbal criticism of the patient, occasionally shown with violence
• Hostility towards the patient including anger and rejection
• emotional over involvement in the life of the patient, including self sacrifice

HIGH levels of E cause hella stress for patients which may be a reason why SZ patient relapse. It can also be a trigger if they have genetic vulnerability. (Diathesis stress model)

Question 7

Strengths

Answer 7

Research support as family dysfunction as a risk factor. Adoption study by tienari et al. It found that adopted children who had schizophrenic parents were more likely to get SZ than those with non schizophrenic biological parents. However this difference only emerged when the adoption family was rated as disturbed or dysfunctional. In other words the illness may have developed due to appropriate environment. Showing that dysfunctional family does contribute to SZ.

Evidence for double blind theory and SZ. Berger found that schizophrenics reported a higher recall of double blind statements by their parents than non schizophrenics. However, this evidence may not be reliable as memory could be impaired by SZ. I.e. hallucinations could means they thought this happened but it never did so we don’t know if real or not

Question 8

Weaknesses SZ psychology

Answer 8

Evidence that family dysfunction is a risk factor is very weak: with regards to double blind theory - Liem measured patterns of parental communication in families with a schizophrenic child and found no difference when compared to normal families. This shows that this theory may not specifically be related to SZ.

NOT ALL PATIENTS WHO LIVE WITH HIGH EE EXPERIENCE RELAPSE. And not all people who live in low ee homes avoid it. A psychologist found that 1/4 of patients showed no physiological change to stress comments, evidence for EE BERY MIXED

a problem with this explanation as well is that it leads to parent blaming. Those who see their children suffer from SZ will SUFFER EVEN MORE as they realise they bare responsibility for being SHIT PARENTS and CASUING THEIR CHILD TO HAVE SZ. It’s not an ethical explanation and will harm parents as well as sufferers