Schizophrenia - Psychological Explanations

Question 1

Family dysfunction

Answer 1

Suggests it is the interpersonal relationships within the family the result in symptoms.

Question 2

The schizophrenogenic mother

Answer 2

A psychodynamic theory that suggests people with schizophrenia get their paranoid delusions as a result of a cold, rejecting and controlling mother and a passive father.
She creates an atmosphere of stress, tension and secrecy in the family which triggers psychotic thinking.

Question 3

Double-bind theory

Answer 3

Suggests the child gets mixed messages and feels unable to do the correct thing.
Bateson (1972) - suggests this results in disorganised thinking and paranoia.

Question 4

Expressed emotion

Answer 4

Verbal interactions the caregiver has with the person with schizophrenia.
- Exaggerated involvement, indicating the sufferer is a burden via self sacrifice.
- Criticism & control of the sufferer’s behaviour.
- Hostility towards the sufferer (physical, verbal or emotional) suggesting aggression.

Question 5

What are cognitive explanations for schizophrenia based on?

Answer 5

The assumption that the ability to process thoughts is dysfunctional.

Question 6

Firth’s (1979) ‘attention deficit theory’

Answer 6

Suggests that schizophrenia is due to a faulty attention system unable to filter preconscious thought and gives too much significance to the information that would usually be filtered, therefore overloading the mind.
This accounts for positive symptoms like hallucinations and delusions.

Question 7

Central control dysfunction

Answer 7

• Central control = the ability to suppress and override automatic actions and speech and make deliberate actions to achieve goals.
• Difficulty resisting urges to do certain things (e.g opening a door when seeing a door handle) and difficulty explaining the reason results in delusions.
• Speech derailment can also be explained by the inability to resist expressing automatic thoughts.

Question 8

Meta-representation

Answer 8

• Meta-representation is the ability to identify your own thoughts and actions as your own by paying attention to them.
• Faults in this system results in delusions of control, the feeling that your own actions are being created by an outside force.