psychological explanations of schizophrenia : ao3

Question 1

Support for the role of family dysfunction

Answer 1

P: One strength of these explanations is evidence linking family dysfunction to schizophrenia. Indicators of family dysfunction include insecure attachment and exposure to childhood trauma, especially abuse.
E: According to review by John Read (2005) adults with schizophrenia or disproportionately likely to have insecure attachment, particularly type C or D. Read et al. also reported that 69% of women and 59% of men with schizophrenia have a history of physical and/or sexual abuse.
E: Furthermore, In research by Morkved et al (2017) most adults with schizophrenia reported at least one childhood trauma, mostly abuse.
L: This strongly suggests that family dysfunction makes people more vulnerable to schizophreni

Question 2

Lack of support for family dysfunction

Answer 2

L: One limitation of family explanations is the poor evidence base for any of the explanations.
E: Although there is plenty of evidence supporting the idea that childhood family-based stress is associated with schizophrenia there is almost none to support the importance of traditional family-based theories such as the schizophrenogenic mother and double bind.
E: Both these theories are based on clinical observations of patients, and informal assessment of the personality of mothers of patients, but not systematic evidence.
L: This means that family explanations have not been able to account for the link between childhood trauma and schizophrenia

Question 3

Discussion point - parent blaming

Answer 3

P: Research into the link between family dysfunction and schizophrenia can pose quite a moral dilemma.
E: Although early explanations for the family-schizophrenia link have no research support, research in this area may be useful in showing that insecure attachment and experience of childhood trauma may affect individual vulnerability to schizophrenia.
E: On the other hand this area of research is very social sensitive as it can lead to parent blaming and adds insult to injury for parents who are having to watch their child experience symptoms of schizophrenia.
L: However, psychologists should not shy away from investigating sensitive topics. With the correct precautions and considerations taken (how will it be used, validity of the research etc.) the benefits of such research will hugely outweigh the costs and will have countless real world applications in attachment, childcare, parenting skills, social work and many more.

Question 4

Research support for dysfunctional
Processing

Answer 4

P: One strength of cognitive explanations is evidence for dysfunctional for processing.
E: John Stirling at al. (2006) compared the performance on a range of cognitive tasks in 30 people with schizophrenia and a control group of 30 people without schizophrenia.
E: Tasks included the Stroop task, in which patients have to name the font-colours of colour-words, so have to suppress the tendency to read the words aloud. As predicted by Frith et al.:
Central control theory, people with schizophrenia took longer - over twice as long on average - to name the font colours.
L: This suggests that the cognitive processes of people with schizophrenia are impaired.

Question 5

Cog explanations are
Only a proximal
Explanation

Answer 5

P: One limitation of cognitive explanations is that they only explain the proximal origins of symptoms.
E:’Cognitive explanations for schizophrenia are proximal explanations because they explain what is happening right now to produce symptoms - as distinct from distal explanations which focus on what initially caused the condition, such as genetic and family dysfunction explanations.
E: What is currently unclear and not well addressed is how genetic variation or childhood trauma may lead to problems with metarepresentation or central control.
L: This means that cognitive theories on their own only provide partial explanations for schizophrenia.