Psychological - Family Dysfunction Flashcards
PSYCHOLOGICAL
What is family dysfunction?
Family dysfunction focuses on abnormal processes within the family such as poor family communication and high levels of expressed emotion.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
What are the two types of family dysfunction?
- Double-bind theory
* Expressed emotion
PSYCHOLOGICAL
What does double-bind theory focus on?
Double-blind theory focuses on faulty communication style in families.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
Describe the double-bind theory
Parents communicate contradictory messages to their children. One of affection on a verbal level, and one of animosity on the non-verbal.
(They say one thing, but their body language and tone could suggest the opposite)
The longer this goes on the more confused the child gets. They start to assume they can do nothing but displease the parent. Eventually this confusion will distort the child’s sense of reality and could lead to negative symptoms of social withdrawal and flattened effect.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
What symptoms of schizophrenia does double-bind theory lead to?
Negative ones, such as social withdrawal and flattened effect.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
Define expressed emotion
Expressed emotion is the level of emotion, in particular negative emotion, expressed towards a patient by their carers.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
What elements does expressed emotion contain?
- Verbal criticism of the patient, occasionally accompanied by violence
- Hostility towards patient, including anger and rejection
- Emotional over-involvement in the life of the patient
PSYCHOLOGICAL
What part of schizophrenia does expressed emotion account for, explain why
EE is primarily an explanation for relapse in patients with schizophrenia. A patient returning to a family with high EE is 4 times more likely to relapse.
It appears the negative emotional climate arouses the patient and leads to stress beyond their already impaired coping mechanism, thus triggering a schizophrenic episode.
It may also be a source of stress that can trigger the onset of schizophrenia in a person who is already vulnerable, for example due to their genetic make-up (trigger the genetic predisposition).
EVALUATION - PSYCHOLOGICAL
What evidence is there to support family dysfunction as having a role in the development of schizophrenia?
There is evidence for the importance of family relationships in the development of schizophrenia.
Tiernari et al - adopted children with schizophrenic biological parents were more likely to develop the disorder themselves than those children with non-schizophrenic biological parents. However, the difference only emerged in situations where the adopted family was rated as disturbed.
This supports the possible role of family dysfunction as it shows that genetic vulnerability alone was not sufficient and that schizophrenia only manifests itself under appropriate environmental conditions.
GENE + TRIGGER - supports both biological explanation and family dysfunction.
EVALUATION - PSYCHOLOGICAL
Give a weakness of the evidence for double-bind theory
A weakness is that there is limited evidence for double-bind explanations. Although there is plenty of evidence supporting that poor childhood experiences are associated with adult schizophrenia, evidence for double-bind communication is limited in that it is contradictory.
Berger found that schizophrenics reported a huger recall of double-bind statements from their mothers than non-schizophrenics, suggesting this type of communication may be a casual factor. However Liem found no difference in patterns of communication in families with a schizophrenic child and those without.
This means we need to question the validity of research into double bind.
EVALUATION - PSYCHOLOGICAL
Give a limitation of the methods used in evidence gathered on family dysfunction
An issue is that most of the evidence gathered on family dysfunction was gathered using self-report methods.
To gather info patients are questioned about their childhood after the development of symptoms and the schizophrenia may have distorted patients’ recall of childhood experience.
This creates a further serious problem of validity for family dysfunction as an explanation.
EVALUATION - PSYCHOLOGICAL
What are the ethical issues?
A weakness is that there are ethical issues with family explanations.
By considering the role of faulty communication in families, they are essentially placing the blame on family members for their relative’s condition.
Parents not only have to see their child suffering but also have the trauma of receiving the blame for the condition.
This is a serious ethical issue as it is like adding insult to injury.
EVALUATION - PSYCHOLOGICAL
How might it not be relevant to all schizophrenic episodes?
There are individual differences in vulnerability to EE. Not all patients who live with high EE families relapse, and not all patients who live in low EE homes avoid relapse.
Research has shown individual differences in stress response to high EE behaviours. Vulnerability may be physiological- for example, one-quarter if patients studied showed no physiological responses to stressful comments made by their relatives.
This is a weakness because it shows that not all patients are equally vulnerable to high levels of expressed emotion within the family.
EVALUATION - PSYCHOLOGICAL
If family dysfunction reductionist?
Yes, it essentially only deals with one aspect of the disorder (faulty communication) and in doing so ignores the compelling evidence for the role of biology in the onset of the disorder.
This is a weakness as it fails to provide a complete explanation for schizophrenia and over emphasises the role of nurture at the expense of nature.
