Schizophrenia (A2) PAPER 3 Flashcards
Explain what is meant by the ‘positive symptoms’ of schizophrenia
Positive symptoms are an excess of normal functioning, these include hallucinations and delusions.
Hallucinations are distorted perceptions of reality.
The most common is auditory hallucinations - voices telling them to do something.
Visual hallucinations- seeing objects or faces that other people can’t see.
Delusions are irrational beliefs that have no basis in reality.
Delusions of persecution- the belief that others want to harm you
Delusions of grandeur - the belief that they are an important individual e.g believe that they are Jesus Christ
Explain what is meant by the ‘negative symptoms’ of schizophrenia
Negative symptoms is when there is a loss of normal functioning, such as speech poverty and avolition
Speech poverty - delay in verbal responses in conversation as they have difficulty in pronunciation. (Reduced amount and quality of speech)
Avolition - difficulty to continue with goal directed behaviour. Lack of motivation to carry out a range of activities.
Discuss the issues of culture bias and gender bias in the diagnosis of schizophrenia
Culture bias -
- African americans and English people with Afro Caribbean origin are more likely to be diagnosed with schz
- Diagnosis seems to be the result of cultural bias
- Hallucinations are more acceptable in African cultures
Gender bias -
- androcentrism, women were seen as less mentally healthy when they do not show ‘male behaviour’
- males tend to suffer more negative symptoms than women
- affects the validity of a diagnosis as clinicians are not considering all symptoms
Explain the role of genetics in the development of schizophrenia
-Gottesman concluded that there’s a correlation with the amount of genes shared. The higher the degree of genetic relativeness, the higher the chance of schizophrenia. e.g if a person has the disorder, there’s a 48% chance that their identical twin will also have it.
-Sz is thought to be polygenic, with lots of different genes contributed to an increase risk of getting it
Outline what is meant by neural correlates
Neural correlates are patterns of structure or activity in the brain that occur with a schizophrenic experience. As they occur simultaneously this could lead us to believe that the patterns observed are implicated in causing schizophrenia
Discuss the dopamine hypothesis
Neurotransmitters work differently in the brain of a patients with schizophrenia.
Unusually high levels of dopamine is associated with schizophrenia, particularly the positive symptoms.
Messages from neurons that transmit dopamine fire too often for those with schizophrenia. Leads to hallucinations and delusions as there is more dopamine binding and therefore more neurons firing
Outline what is meant by ‘dysfunctional thought processing’
Information processing that does not represent reality accurately and produces undesirable consequences
Evaluate family dysfunction as an explanation for schizophrenia
(+) Supporting evidence
=Berger et al found out that schizophrenics reported a higher recall of double bind statements from there mothers than non-schizophrenics.
=Family dysfunctions play a role in the onset of schizophrenia and may lead to practical applications for family therapy
= COUNTER - Liem et al found that patterns of parental communication are similar in both schz an non schz families.
= patients report childhood expereinces retrospectively, recall may be inacurate which comprimises validity
= little systematic research to determine explanation as valid
(-) Individual differences
=Altorfer et al found that a 1/4 of the patients they studied showed no physiological responses to stressfull comments from their relatives
= individual differences in response to high expresed emotion (EE) like behaviours
= not completley valid as it may not apply to all schiz suffers.
Explain one limitation of cognitive explanations as an explanation of schizophrenia
Explain what is meant by an ‘atypical antipsychotic’ drug
Outline the use of typical antipsychotics
Explain the difference between typical and atypical antipsychotics
Explain how cognitive behaviour therapy is used in the treatment of of schizophrenia
Outline the use of family therapy to treat schizophrenia
Evaluate the use of cognitive behaviour therapy to treat schizophrenia
