Psychological explanations of schizophrenia - Family dysfunction

Question 1

Briefly outline family dysfunction as an explanation. of schizophrenia

Answer 1

Family dysfunction is the idea that the family isn’t functioning adequately. For example, there tends to be difficulties with communication between family members and parents which is known as the double bind theory. This can leads to the development of negative symptoms. Also when there’s family dysfunction, the parents tend to be critical and controlling which is know as expressed emotion and this can cause relapse in those who have been treated for schizophrenia previously

Question 2

What is meant by a schizophrenogenic mother ?

Answer 2

Frieda fromm-Reichmann - Psychodynamic explanation

• Simply means schizophrenia causing mother
• Tends to be cold, rejecting, hostile which leads to excessive stress which triggers positive symptoms like psychotic thinking. The father also tends to be passive.

Question 3

What is meant by double bind theory ?

Answer 3

Bateson -

• Trouble communicating so the child constantly gets mixed messages on what is right and wrong
• When the child ‘gets it wrong’ they are punished by the withdrawal of love.
• This leaves the child confused and causes symptoms such as disorganised thinking and paranoia

Question 4

What is meant by expressed emotion ?

Answer 4

When families show high levels of emotional expression to the child in 3 ways:

• Emotional over involvement
• Verbal criticism
• Hostility towards the individual

This increases the risk of relapse (Kavanagh)
- The relapse rate is doubled when the parents show high levels of expressed emotion (Butzlaff and Hooley)

Question 5

What is meant by a schism ?

Answer 5

Lidz et al - this is another type of family dysfunction

State of imbalance between parents as they hold contrary views which can cause them to become hostile to each other. This divides the loyalties in the chid as they have to pick sides

Question 6

What is meant by a marital skew ?

Answer 6

When one parent is more dominant than the other. One parent takes the dominant role while the other one takes the submissive role.

Question 7

Strengths of the psychological explanation of schizophrenia (family dysfunction)

Answer 7

P- Practical application
E- Family therapy
E - Berger found schizophrenic patients recalled more double bind statements by their mother than non Sz
L - Therefore, practical app as explanations can be used to help treat people with Sz
H - Therapy only treats the symptoms and not the biological aspect

P - Supporting evidence
E - Tienari - looked at biological children of Sz mothers. Found only 5.8% adopted into psychologically healthy families developed it compared to 36.8% of those adopted into dysfunctional families.
E - Higher % shows that family life plays a part
L - Therefore, dysfunctional families increase likelihood of developing Sz
H - This % isn’t that high and its not even 50% so it might not have as much impact as some suggest

Question 8

Weaknesses of the psychological explanation of schizophrenia (family dysfunction)

Answer 8

P - Lack of cause and effect
E - Mischler and Waxler - mothers speak significantly different to their daughters with Sz compared to daughters who do not
E - This suggests that dysfunctional communication might be a result of living with a Sz child, not the cause
L- Therefore, lacks cause and effect so its only based off a correlation which lack validity

P- Socially sensitive
E- Blames the parents, mainly the mother (schizophrenogenic mother) and says that their child has Sz because of the way they were treated
E - This isn’t always the case as biology plays a huge part so even if they are brought up in a stable environment they may have a candidate gene that causes the development of it.
L - Therefore, this data may be socially sensitive and display gender bias as its blaming the mother in particular for their child having Sz