Schizophrenia - Psychological explanations Flashcards
What are the two psychological explanations to schizophrenia?
- Family dysfunction
- Cognitive explanations
What is family dysfunction?
Patterns of relationships and communication in families of people with schizophrenia.
What are the 3 types of family dysfunction?
- Schizophrenogenic mother
- Double bind
- Expressed emotion
What is a schizophrenogenic mother?
Mother is:
- critical
- hostile
- overprotective/controlling
- rigid
- moralistic about sex
Father is passive
- Family ‘schism’ (split)
How does the schizophrenogenic mother explanation explain schizophrenia?
Due to faulty communication and contradictory behaviour which causes confusion and distrust in the child which leads of paranoid delusions of schizophrenia.
What is the double bind explanation?
- Child finds themselves in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing
- Receive mixed messages
- Feel unable to seek clarification
- Punished by withdrawal of love
- World seems dangerous and confusing
E.g. Child falls over and goes to mother. Mother rejects child and tells them to grow up. Child falls over again and goes to friend’s mother. Child’s mother sees and says ‘Why didn’t you come to me? Don’t you love me?
This leads to disorganised thinking and paranoid delusions of schizophrenia.
What is expressed emotion?
- Level of negative emotion expressed towards or about schizophrenic patient by carers.
- E.g. verbal criticism, hostility and rejection
- Causes stress for patient
- High levels of EE are associated with relapse
How does expressed emotion explain schizophrenia?
Higher levels of relapse in households with higher EE.
What are the strengths of family dysfunction as an explanation for schizophrenia?
Support for EE
- 26 studies for EE were reviewed patients with high EE families had a 48% relapse rate whereas those in low EE families had a 21% relapse rate
What is the limitation of schizophrenogenic mother and double bind theories?
- Specific evidence for schizophrenogenic mother and the double bind causing schizophrenia is weak
- Based on outdated ideas of blaming parents
- Therefore these explanations lack validity and cannot give us a casual explanation of schizophrenia
What are the two types of dysfunctional cognitions that could cause schizophrenia symptoms?
- (Lack of) central control
- (Lack of) metarepresentation
What is central control?
- Ability to suppress automatic responses so we can perform deliberate actions instead
- Lack = disorganised speech - can’t suppress automatic thoughts from becoming speech
What is metarepresentation?
- Being able to reflect on thoughts and behaviour (gives insight)
- Allows us to work out we are responsible for our thoughts and actions, not someone else
- Also allows us to work out the motivations of other people
- A lack would explain being experienced as auditory hallucinations and actions being seen as due to some outside influence (delusions)
What is the strength of central control?
Research support
- Patients with schizophrenia and non-patient controls compared on cognitive tasks (Stroop test)
- Patients took twice as long to name the ink colour as the control group
- This is because they have problems with central control and find it harder to override automatic reponses with deliberate actions
What is the strength of metarepresentation?
Research support
- Found faulty cognitions in those with schizophrenia
- Eg. delusional patients showed cognitive biases such as jumping to conclusions and lack of reality testing
- This can explain why a person crossing the road as you approach can be seen as a rejection by a paranoid schizophrenic person
