psychological explanations for sz

Question 1

what are the 2 psychological explanations for sz?

Answer 1

• family dysfunction: schizophrenogenic mother, double bind, expressed emotion
• cognitive explanations: metarepresentation, central control

Question 2

what is family dysfunction?

Answer 2

an explanation of SZ that suggests it is the inter-personal relationships with the family that result in symptoms

Question 3

who researched the SZ mother?

Answer 3

Fromm-Reichmann

Question 4

what is the SZ mother?

Answer 4

• mothers behaviour affects and induces schizophrenic behaviour in child/patient
• cold, rejecting and controlling
• creates family climate characterised by tension and secrecy

Question 5

how does the SZ mother lead to SZ

Answer 5

leads to distrust, paranoid delusions and ultimately SZ

Question 6

who researched the double bind theory?

Answer 6

Bateson

Question 7

what is the double bind theory?

Answer 7

• child receives mixed messages and cannot do the right thing
• when they get it wrong, they are punished with withdrawal of love
• leads to understanding of world as dangerous and confusing

Question 8

how does the double bind theory lead to SZ?

Answer 8

leads to disorganised thinking paranoid delusions and ultimately SZ

Question 9

what is expressed emotion?

Answer 9

• verbal critisism of child, occasionally with violence
• hostility (anger/rejection)
• family shows emotional over-involvement in child’s life (needless self-sacrifice)
• leads to excessive stress

Question 10

how does expressed emotion lead to SZ?

Answer 10

may trigger relapse in patients with SZ, and may trigger onset of SZ in non-sufferers who are vulnerable
(due to stress)

Question 11

what are cognitive explanations?

Answer 11

explores how dysfunctional thought processes enable the development of SZ

Question 12

who researched the cognitive explanations?

Answer 12

Frith et al.

Question 13

what did Frith identify?

Answer 13

• highlighted how cognitive issues are linked to SZ
• identified 2 kinds of dysfunctional thought processing that could underlie symptoms

Question 14

what is metarepresentation?

Answer 14

• the ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour
• allows us insight into our own intentions and goals and interpretation of the actions of others

Question 15

what is dysfunction of metarepresentation? and how does it link to SZ?

Answer 15

• failure to recognise actions and thoughts as being our own and not others
• explains hallucinations of voices and delusions like thought insertion in SZ patients

Question 16

what is central control?

Answer 16

the ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions instead

Question 17

what is dysfunction of central control? and how does it link to SZ?

Answer 17

• disorganised speech and thought disorder could result from dysfunction of central control
• e.g. sufferers of SZ experience derailment of thoughts and speech, because each word triggers associations and the patient cannot suppress automatic responses to these

Question 18

evaluation dysfunctional thought processes: supporting evidence

Answer 18

ID: there is evidence supporting the idea that dysfunctional thought processes are implicated in the
development of schizophrenia
Q: Stirling demonstrated that faulty central control skills may be responsible for some SZ
symptoms
EV: for example, he compared 30 patients with a diagnosis of SZ, with 18 non-patients as a control group, on a range of cognitive tasks including the stroop test. he found that SZ patients took over twice as long to name the colours than the control group.
AN: this supports Frith et al.’s suggestion of a relationship between central control dysfunction and symptoms of SZ
ELAB: however, this does not tell us about the origins of those cognitions and therefore the origins of SZ

Question 19

evaluation family dysfunction: lack of evidence

Answer 19

ID: a weakness would be the lack of support for family-based explanations
Q: there is almost no evidence to support the importance of the schizophrenogenic mother or double bind
EV: both these theories are based on the clinical observation of patients. these explanations have led historically to parent blaming, parents undergo further trauma for being blamed, creating even greater stress and being seen as destructive
AN: this is highly unethical and questions relevancy in today’s society. the shift in the 1980s from hospital to community care, often involving parent care, may be one of the factors leading to the decline of the schizophrenogenic mother and double bind theories

Question 20

evaluation psychological exp.: machine reductionist/should be compared to bio expl.

Answer 20

ID: a significant weakness of psychological explanations for SZ is that they do not accommodate for biological factors.
Q: psychological explanations can be combined with other explanations (e.g. biological) to give a more holistic account of schizophrenia.
EV: for example, biological factors can explain the origins of schizophrenia, in terms of dopamine levels in the brain, candidate genes and patterns of activity coinciding with symptoms/
neural correlates.
AN: this suggests that psychological explanations would best be reserved for the proximal causes of SZ, as these causes are more likely to be most affected by psychological factors. an interactionist approach would be best suited in explaining SZ