Psychological Explanations of Schizophrenia

Question 1

Family Dysfunction : Schizophrenogenic Mother

Answer 1

Fromm-Reichmann (1948) - psychodynamic explanation

• cold, rejecting and controlling mothers that create tension + secrecy
• leads to distrust + paranoid delusions => SZ

Question 2

Family Dysfunction : Double-Bind Theory

Answer 2

Bateson et al (1972)
=> fear doing the wrong thing but receive conflicting messages about what’s wrong
=> cannot express feelings about unfairness
=> when incorrect withdrawal of love as punishment

as result - world is confusing => leads to disorganised thinking and delusions

Question 3

Family Dysfunction : Expressed Emotion

Answer 3

Level of emotion (mainly negative) expressed e.g.
=> verbal criticism
=> hostility
=> emotional over involvement

high levels of EE can cause stress => SZ onset or relapse

Question 4

FD AO3: (S) Evidence linking to SZ - a review by Read at al (2005)

Answer 4

• Reported adults w/ SZ disproportionately had Type C or D attachment
• 69% of women + 59% of men w/ SZ had history of physical and/or sexual abuse

Suggests => FD makes ppl more vunerable to SZ

Question 5

FD AO3: (L) Poor evidence base for either explanations

Answer 5

• Almost no evidence to support importance of traditional family based theories
• both theories are based on clinical observations of patients + informal assessment

Means => family explanations haven’t explained link between childhood trauma + SZ

Question 6

FD AO3 Extra: Parent-blaming

Answer 6

Research in this area may be useful but is socially sensitive
- creates additional stress for parents seeing child experience SZ + taking responsibility for their care

Means => research will always be controversial but worth potential benefits

Question 7

Cognitive Reasons : Dysfunctional thought processing

Answer 7

Lower levels of information processing in some areas of brain - cognition is impaired

e.g. reduced processing in ventral striatum is associated with negative symptoms

Question 8

Cognitive Reasons : Metarepresentation => leads to hallucinations

Answer 8

• is the cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour (Frith et al 1992)

=> this disrupts ability to recognise own thoughts as own
=> leads to sensation of hearing voices (hallucination) + experience of thoughts being placed in mind by others (delusions)

Question 9

Central control dysfunction => leads to speech poverty

Answer 9

• the cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while performing deliberate actions (Frith et al 1992)

=> those w/ SZ experience derailment of thoughts - each word triggers automatic associations that can’t be suppressed

Question 10

Cog. AO3 : (S) Evidence for dysfunctional thought processing

Answer 10

Stirling et al (2006) - compared performance on cog. tasks (Stroop task) in ppl w/ + w/o SZ
=> found ppl w/ SZ twice as long to name font colours

Supports => view cognitive processes are impaired

Question 11

Cog. AO3 : (L) Only proximal origins of symptoms explained

Answer 11

• Cog. explanations are only proximal (explain what’s happening now to cause symptoms)
• are weaker as distal explanations (what causes cognitive problems) such as FD or genes

Means => cognitive theories are only partial explanations

Question 12

Cog. AO3 Extra : Psychological or biological?

Answer 12

• Cog. approach explains SZ symptoms - suggests its a psychological explanation
• But abnormal cognition is partly genetic in origin + result of abnormal brain development (Toulopoulou et al, 2019)

Means => even though it has psych. symptoms, SZ may be seen as a bio. condition best