The Psychological Explanation for Schizophrenia

Question 1

Defence Mechanisms:

Answer 1

• Denial
• Repression
• Displacement
• Projection: we project our own problem behaviour onto someone else.
• Sublimation: putting effort in to one activity because another can’t be pursued.
• Rationalisation: giving an alternative interpretation to something.
• Regression: we go back several stages in our development.
• Transference: transferring your feelings about one person to another

Question 2

Psychodynamic Perspective

Answer 2

• Id works on the pleasure principle.
• Ego works on reality principle and forces us to consider the risks, requirements and possible outcomes as we make decisions.
• Secondary process functions through the ego’s action of looking for an object in the real world that matches the mental image created by the id’s primary process.

Question 3

The Psychodynamic Approach

Answer 3

• Freud thought that schizophrenia was a form of attachment disorder and stated that schizophrenia develops when a child does not successfully develop an attachment with the parent of the opposite sex.
• Freud considered that infants are born into a state of mutual adaptation with the mother. It also concerns the child not developing a ‘reality principle’.

Question 4

Schizophrenogenic Mother

Answer 4

• Mother is held to be emotionally disturbed, cold, rejecting, dominating, perfectionistic and insensitive.
• At the same time, however, she is overprotective, fosters dependence, and is both seductive and rigidly moralistic.
• Historically, this type of mother was considered to play a causal role in the development of schizophrenia, but this view is no longer held

Question 5

Double-bind theory

Answer 5

• Double bind theory states that schizophrenia is caused by mixed messages from parents that express care but at the same time appear critical.
• Also relates to a contradiction between a person’s verbal behaviour and non-verbal behaviour.
• This causes them to develop an incoherent version of reality and other schizophrenic symptoms.

Question 6

Evaluation
Research evidence:

Answer 6

• Read et al. (2005)
• Those with schizophrenia are far more likely to have insecure attachment (type C and D) than the general population. This argues that the family relationships may have a role in schizophrenia.
• Read also noted that the majority of those with schizophrenia had been physically or sexually abused. Again, this suggests that family dysfunction has a role to play in schizophrenia.

Question 7

Lack of evidence: evaluation

Answer 7

• However, there is little evidence for the particular theories under study (double bind and schizophrenogenic mothers). So even if a family dysfunction does have a role to play, the aforesaid explanations may not account for schizophrenia.

Question 8

Parent-blaming eval

Answer 8

• In conclusion, there seems to be a link between insecure attachment, abuse and schizophrenia. But this does not mean that the aforesaid are causal. Wrongly believing that mothers cause schizophrenia can lead to social sensitive conclusions, such as ‘parent-blaming’.

Question 9

Family Dysfunction as an explanation of schizophrenia eval

Answer 9

• There is an issue with the methodology of such studies, as they are retrospective, meaning that they look back at the lives of patients and infer the cause.
• This is unscientific as it does not allow the researcher to look at what made the biggest difference and when.
• Prospective studies are therefore better, but they are expensive and tend to have small samples.
• Having said this, Tienari et al. did find a link between background and schizophrenia prospectively.