Schizophrenia: The interactionist approach Flashcards
What does the interactionist approach suggest?
Schizophrenia is due to a combination of biological, psychological and social factors
What does diathesis mean?
Vulnerability
What does stress mean?
A negative psychological experience
Who is the original explanation of the diathesis stress model by?
Meehl
What did Meehl’s original diathess stress model state
Diathesis (vulnerablity) was entirely genetic
What was vulnerability down to in Meehl’s original diathesis stress model?
A single ‘schizo-gene’, which made someone sensitive to stress
What did Meehl suggest?
If a person didn’t have the ‘schizo-gene’, no amount of stress could lead to schizophrenia
According to Meehl, what could happen if someone had the ‘schizo-gene’?
Stress through childhood such as having a schizophregenic mother could lead to schizophrenia
What is now believed?
That there is no single schizo-gene but may genes that increase the vulnerability to schizophrenia (polygenic)
What factors other than genes could be a diathesis?
Psychological trauma
What can early and sever trauma such as child abuse do?
Seriously affect aspects of brain development and make a person more vulnerable to stress.
What is a modern definition of stress?
Anything that risks triggering Schizophrenia, not just parenting.
What has much of the recent research concerned?
Cannabis use, where cannabis is the stressor because it increases the risk of schizophrenia by up to 7 times according to the dose
Not everyone develops Schizophrenia after having Cannabis, what does this suggest?
That there msut be one or more vulnerability factors
