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Psychological Explanations for SZ (Family dysfunction- abnormal processes…
Psychological Explanations for SZ
Family dysfunction- abnormal processes within a family. Often affects sufferer in their childhood due to environment they grew up in.
Double-bind theory- Bateson et al agreed with SM, however suggested the role of communication within a family was important. Child will find themselves trapped, and in fear of doing wrong, even though they are unsure about what wrong is. This leads to confusion, and feeling in danger, which can lead to disorganised thinking and paranoid delusions.
Expressed emotion and SZ- Level of negative emotion expressed by carer to child. Contains 3 elements:
1) Verbal criticism
2) Hostility
3) Emotional over involvement in life.
These are serious stress causes, but may also trigger a response that has been biologically given to an SZ sufferer diathesis stress model).
Schizophrenogenic mother- Fromm-Reichmann proposed that many of her patients attributed certain characteristics to their mother. Suggests they caused it. A schizophrenogenic mother is cold, rejecting and controlling. Create a tense climate which can lead to paranoid delusions.
Cognitive Explanations
Dysfunctional thought processing- Our processing of information will be irregular and abnormal in SZ sufferers. Characterised by reduced thought processing in the ventral striatum (associated with -ve symptoms) or reduced processing in temporal gyri (+ve symptoms).
Frith identified two parts
Metarepresentation- Cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviours. However in SZ sufferers, the inner voice in our heads may be mistaken for an outside voice controlling them, which means that they may have hallucinations of voices or delusions.
Central control- Cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses, which may provide explanation for disorganised speech or derailment of thoughts (going off on a tangent).
EVALUATION
Family dysfunction
Support from research- Read et al found that 69% of women had a history of sexual or physical abuse as a child. Berry found adults with insecure attachments were more likely to have SZ too.
SZ mother- By 1980, there was a conclusion there was no such thing. Became apparent that only minority of these mothers produced SZ suffering children. Process therefore was said to hinder psychiatry progress
Double bind theory- Conflicting evidence. Berger found that SZ sufferers did recall conflicting messages. However, Liem and also Hall and Levin found no correlation in parental communication and SZ suffering.
Expressed emotion- Some supporting evidence, Brown found families with high EE resulted in 59% of SZ sufferers returning to hospital. However, there is no causal link between EE and SZ, as it may just be about the reaction of the patient, and also its more prominent in Western, individualist cultures.
Cognitive explanations
Research support from Stirling is provided with his Stroop test, in which participants name the colour they see. 30 cases and 18 controls used, found that SZ sufferers took over twice as long to name all the colours.
Compatible with biological explanations
No evidence of what causes these changes, despite the fact it describes how it is affected in SZ sufferers.