Psychological Explanations Of Schizophrenia

Question 1

what are psychological Explanations for schizophrenia?

Answer 1

looking at environmental and cognitive influences that can cause an individual to develop schizophrenia such as family dysfunction and cognitive explanations

Question 2

family dysfunction KW

Answer 2

abnormal processes within a family such as poor family communication, cold parenting and high levels of expressed emotion. these can both develop and maintain schizophrenia

Question 3

cognitive explanations KW

Answer 3

Explanations that focus on mental processes such as thinking,language and attention

Question 4

dysfunctional thought processing KW

Answer 4

thought processes that have been disrupted. split into metarepresentation and the lack of ability to suppress automatic responses

Question 5

what are the 2 psychological explanations of schizophrenia?

Answer 5

• family dysfunction - environments influence usually the family
• cognitive explanation - focus on the mind and it’s abnormal functioning

Question 6

what is included under family dysfunction?

Answer 6

• the schizophrenic mother
• double bind theory
• expressed emotion (EE)

Question 7

what is the theory of the schizophrenic mother?

Answer 7

• mothers who have SCHIZ cause their children to have the disorder due to how they behave as a result of SCHIZ
• usually in a cold,rejecting and controlling manner
• this leads to tension and secrecy between parent and child which long term can develop into SCHIZ
• fromm-reichmann based this theory from accounts of her SCHIZ patients and noted that all of then spoke about a particular type of parent - schizophrenic mother

Question 8

what is the double bind theory?

Answer 8

• communication style within a family which is mixed and contradictory for children
• verbal and nonverbal messages may not match
• When a child does something wrong they will usually be withdrawn of love even tho they were told there mum will always love them
• causes fear which makes them view the world as dangerous ( correlates with disorganised thinking and paranoid delusions)

Question 9

what is the theory of expressed emotion?

Answer 9

• When this level is high towards a child it causes SCHIZ
• comes in 3 forms
  # verbal criticism = negative comments
  # hostility = threats, anger
  # emotional over involvement =interfering with child’s life
• causes stress for the child
• causes many relapses in many
• DSM - those in this environment and are biologically vulnerable will develop SCHIZ

Question 10

what are the cognitive explanations?

Answer 10

• some people have dysfunctional thought processing
• split into 2 types
  # metarepresentation - inability to reflect on thoughts and behaviours of themselves which results in many hallucinations and delusions
  # lack of ability to suppress automatic responses - usually in speech which explains disorganised speech and derailment ( words trigger association and can’t stop this thought association)