Social Explanations Of Schizophrenia - Dysfunctional Families Evaluation Flashcards
Research to support for EE
S- there’s empirical evidence to support the link between expressed emotion and schizophrenia
E- Berger interviewed schizophrenics and found that they reported a higher rate of recall of double bind statements by their mothers than non schizophrenics
C- McCreadie and Phillips failed to find higher subsequent 6- and 12- month relapse rates among individuals with schizophrenia living in high EE homes
W- this therefore suggests that although expressed emotion may be a significant factor in the relapse of some individuals with schizophrenia, it is not the only factor that determines relapse
The origin of double bind communication
S- one limitation of theories into communication difficulties as a causal factor of schizophrenia is that not all research has found a significant difference in the quality of communication within SZ families
E- for example Liems research found that the communications offered in a structured task by the parents of 11 sons with schizophrenia were no more disordered than the communications offered by parents of 11 sons who did not have schizophrenia
E- furthermore Liem suggested studies that did found differences in parental communication may actually just be detecting parents having to adapt their communication styles as a result of having a schizophrenic child.
W- This suggests that the communication difficulties on which double bind theory is based are potentially the effect of SZ and and not the root cause of SZ, reducing the overall validity of the explanation at explaining the origin of SZ
Nature or nurture ?
S- one potential limitation is that the explanations are based solely on the impact of communication difficulties in the family environment, therefore a nurture stance on explaining schizophrenic behaviours.
E- for example the double bind theory communications may be symptoms of pathology in the parent and therefore it could be the pathology rather than the superficial communications which is a greater problem
E- however, SZ could be a product of shared family genes. Research has found 108 genetic loci associated with SZ. Therefore communication explanations may be considered somewhat reductionist in simplifying SZ down to nurture only explanations.
W- overall, a better explanation than schizophrenia being caused purely by family dysfunction would be an “interactionist” approach. The interactionist approach would suggests that the development and manifestation of schizophrenia is influenced by the interplay between biological (genetic vunerability, neurological abnormality), psychological and societal factors.
