Psychological Explanations for SZ - Family Dysfunction (DB, EE) Flashcards
Schizophrenogenic Mother
Fromm-Reichmann (1948)
Proposed that schizophrenia comes from being reared by a cold and dominant mother who is both overprotective but rejecting. Although such a mother
appears self-sacrificing, she actually uses the child to satisfy her own emotional needs. Therefore,
individuals brought up with this mothering style develop schizophrenia as they are confused by their mothers overprotective but rejecting nature.
Bateson (1956)
proposed the double-bind hypothesis which suggested that schizophrenia is a reaction to contradictory communication between the mothers’ tone of voice and content.
why did bateson argue that Children who frequently receive contradictory messages from their parents are more likely to develop schizophrenia.
because one message effectively invalidates the other, Prolonged exposure to such interactions prevents the development of an internally coherent construction of reality; in the long run, this shows itself as typically schizophrenic symptoms such as flattening affect, delusions and hallucinations,
incoherent thinking and speaking, and in some cases paranoia.
Evaluation of Double-Bind theory:
what did Berger find?
Berger (1965) found that schizophrenics reported a higher recall of double-bind statements by their mothers than non-schizophrenics. This evidence may not, however, be reliable as patients’ recall may be affected by their illness.
- Evaluation of Double-Bind theory
what did Bateson (1956) find from case study
a recovering schizophrenic was visited in hospital by his mother. He embraced her warmly, but
she stiffened, and when he withdrew his arms she said: ‘Don’t you love me anymore?’ This gives support to the idea of double bind.
Evaluation of Double-Bind theory
criticisms
Yet, critics have argued that this is weak evidence for the theory due to the use of a case study, which lacks
population validity and therefore generalisability.
A second weakness of the double bind theory is that there are ethical issues.
There are serious ethical concerns in blaming the family, particularly as there is little evidence upon which to base this.
Gender bias is also an issue as the mother tends to be blamed the most, which means such research is highly socially sensitive.
This suggests that the research therefore does not protect individuals from harm.
what is expressed emotion
a high degree of expressed emotion is a family communication style that involves criticism, hostility and emotional over-involvement. researchers concluded that this is more important in maintaining schizophrenia than in causing it in the first place, (Brown et al 1958).
what did researchers find that is likely to happen when a patient returns to a family with a high degree of EE
Schizophrenics returning to a family with high EE were more likely to relapse into the disorder than those returning to a family low in EE. The rate of relapse was particularly high if returning to a high EE family was coupled with no medication.
how does supporting research from tierni et al confirm that EE impacts the development of schizophrenia
supporting research comes from tierni et al who studied the biological children of schizophrenic children that had been adopted. furthermore, 36% of children raised in dysfunctional family households went on to develop schizophrenia compared to only 5.6% that were raised in healthy families. this suggests that the interpersonal family environment has a significant impact on the development of schizophrenia in genetically vulnerable people
