psychological explanations to schizophrenia Flashcards
family therapy explanation eval
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 affect individual vulnerability to schizophrenia. So there is a sound research basis to investigate the links between family dysfunction and schizophrenia. Also, research specifically into the double bind and schizophrenogenic mother has allowed us to quash rather than simply ignore those early theories.
On the other hand, research linking family dysfunction to schizophrenia is highly socially sensitive because it can lead to parent-blaming. For parents already having to watch their child experience the symptoms of schizophrenia and take responsibility for their care, to be blamed literally adds insult to injury. A psychological theory should not cause harm to people, and theories like the schizophrenogenic mother and double bind have done harm.
This means that research into family dysfunction and schizophrenia will always be very controversial.
cognitive explanation to schizophrenia apply it eval
The cognitive approach to schizophrenia provides an excellent explanation for the symptoms of schizophrenia. There is therefore an argument for seeing schizophrenia primarily as a psychological condition. Certainly the experience of schizophrenia is an intense psychological one – both positive symptoms like hallucinations and negative symptoms like disruption to thinking and speech are psychological in nature.
On the other hand, it appears that the abnormal cognition associated with schizophrenia is partly genetic in origin and the result of abnormal brain development (Toulopoulou et al. 2019). This would suggest that schizophrenia is a biological condition. Even the environmental influences on development of schizophrenia appear to operate on a biological level, affecting brain development.
This means that although it has psychological symptoms, schizophrenia is perhaps best seen as a biological condition.
Research support
Research support
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. According to a review by John Read et al. (2005) adults with schizophrenia are 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. In the Morkved et al. (2017) study, on the previous spread, most adults with schizophrenia reported at least one childhood trauma, mostly abuse.
This strongly suggests that family dysfunction makes people more vulnerable to schizophrenia.
Explanations lack support
One limitation of family explanations is the poor evidence base for any of the explanations.
Although there is plenty of evidence supporting the idea that childhood family-based stress is associated with adult schizophrenia there is almost none to support the importance of traditional family-based theories such as the schizophrenogenic mother and double bind. Both these theories are based on clinical observation of people with schizophrenia and also informal assessment of their mothers’ personalities, but not systematic evidence.
This means that family explanations have not been able to account for the link between childhood trauma and schizophrenia
Evaluation
Research support
One strength of cognitive explanations is evidence for dysfunctional thought processing.
John Stirling et al. (2006) compared performance on a range of cognitive tasks in 30 people with schizophrenia and a control group of 30 people without schizophrenia. Tasks included the Stroop task (see right), in which participants 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’s central control theory. people with schizophrenia took longer - over twice as long on average - to name the font-colours.
This means that the cognitive processes of people with schizophrenia are impaired.
A proximal explanation
One limitation of cognitive explanations is that they only explain the proximal origins of symptoms.
Cognitive explanations for schizophrenia are proximal explanations because they explain what is happening now to produce symptoms - as distinct from distal explanations which focus on what initially caused the condition. Possible distal exolanations are genetic and familv dvsfunction explanations. What is currently unclear and not well-addressed is how genetic variation or childhood trauma might lead to problems with metarepresentation or central control.
This means that cognitive theories on their own only provide partial explanations for schizophrenia.
