Schizophrenia Flashcards
What is schizophrenia?
A severe mental disorder characterised by a profound disruption of cognition and emotion so that contact with external reality and insight are impaired.
What are positive symptoms?
Atypical symptoms experienced in addition to normal experiences.
What are negative symptoms?
Loss of usual experiences.
What are the positive symptoms?
Hallucinations and delusion
Hallucination
Disturbances of perception. Many schizophrenics report hearing voices or seeing people, telling them to do something.
Delusions
Firmly held irrational beliefs that have no basic reality.
What are the different types of delusions?
- Persecution
- Grandeur
- Control
- Reference
Persecution delusions
The belief that others want to harm you
Grandeur
The belief that they are an important individual
Control
The belief that their body is under external control
Reference
The belief that events in the environment appear to be directly related to them e.g. messages communicated through the TV.
What are the negative symptoms?
Avolition and speech poverty
Avolition
Lack of purposeful willed behaviour. e.g. no longer interested in going out, meeting friends, poor hygiene and work or education
Speech Poverty
Limited speech output with limited, often repetitive content. Sometimes accompanied by a delay in responses during conversation.
What are the 3 main biological explanations for schizophrenia?
- Genetic explanations
- Dopamine Hypothesis
- Neural Correlates
Describe the genetic explanation of schizophrenia
There is evidence that schizophrenia runs in families and is in part genetic.
Schizophrenia is thought to be polygenic and so different combinations of genes can lead to the condition. Research suggests that there are 108 genetic variations associated with increased risk of schizophrenia.
Describe the updated Dopamine Hypothesis explanation
Davis suggested that the positive symptoms of schizophrenia are caused by higher levels of activity of dopamine in the sub cortex called hyperdopaminergic.
The negative symptoms of schizophrenia are thought to arise from lower levels of dopamine in the pre frontal cortex called hypodopaminergic.
Describe the neural correlates explanation for schizophrenia
There are thought to be neural correlates of positive symptoms and negative symptoms.
Lower activation levels in the superior temporal gyrus and anterior cingulate gyrus have been found in those experiencing auditory hallucinations. Therefore, reduced activity in these two areas is a neural correlate of auditory hallucinations.
Activity in the ventral striatum in a neural correlate of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
What are the 3 theories for the family dysfunction of schizophrenia? (psychodynamic)
- Schizophrenogenic Mother
- Double Bind
- Expressed Emotion
Describe the theory for Schizophrenogenic Mother
Says schizophrenia comes from being reared by a cold mother who is both overprotective but rejecting.
Individuals develop schizophrenia as they are confused by their mothers overprotective but rejecting nature.
Today this hypothesis is not taken seriously by most researches as researches have also found that this mothering style is implicated in many other disorders.
Describe the theory of Expressed Emotions
Where families show criticism and hostility upon recovering schizophrenics.
People with schizophrenia have a lower emotional tolerance and the negative emotional climate in these families arouses the patient and leads to stress, therefore triggering an episode.
Describe the theory of Double Bind
Suggested that schizophrenia is a reaction to a parent presenting the child with a no win situation.
For example, a mother may say ‘come and give mummy a cuddle’ but then freezes when the child approaches and then tells the child off for not being affectionate.
Prolonged exposure to such interactions prevents the development of an internally coherent construction of reality, which shows itself as symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations and paranoia.
How do you classify schizophrenia?
DSM-5 needs only one positive symptom to be present for diagnosis. ICD-10 needs two or more negative symptoms.
Cognitive Explanation for Schizophrenia
- Focuses on dysfunctional thought processes
- Frith identified 2 dysfunctional though processes: metarepresentation and central control
