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Psychological explanation for SZ - Coggle Diagram
Psychological explanation for SZ
Family dysfunction
Double-blind communication
Bateson argued that a risk factor for developing SZ was being in doubly blind situations, he called these 'no win' situations
When a child receives mixed messages about their relationship where one contradicts the other, the child feels trapped and doesn't know how to respond as whatever they d they feel they will be wrong
Can explain the following symptoms of SZ:
Paranoid delusions: stem from an individual always looking for hidden messages, based on the belief that the world is dangerous and people are trying to hurt them
Disorganised thinking: results from seeing the world as confusing and hard to make sense of
S: Supporting evidence for the role of double blind communication in the risk of SZ, Berger studied the retrospective family experience of patients with a diagnosis of SZ compared with a control group of students without a diagnosis of SZ, it was found that patients with SZ had a higher recall of double blind statements in their childhood, this shows that there is a relationship between double-blind communication and SZ
Expressed emotion
Level of emotion, in particular negative emotions expressed towards a patient by their carers
Exaggerated emotional involvement in the life of the patient
High control and verbal criticism
High levels of expressed emotion in carers directed towards the patient are a serious source of stress for the patient, this is primarily an explanation of relapse in patients with SZ however it has been suggested it can also be a source of stress that can trigger the onset of SZ in a person who is already vulnerable
A03
S: Evidence to support expressed emotions in relapse, Butzlaff and Hooley conducted a meta-analysis of 27 studies of the expressed emotion outcome relationship in SZ, they found that relapse rates were double in patients with high levels of expressed emotions in the family, this suggests that family dysfunction has a role in the relapse rates of SZ
L: Issue with studying family, as it may be the result of a child's disturbing behaviour rather then the cause of SZ, which makes it difficult to establish cause and effect, additionally, studying families relies on retrospective recall of data as patients will report childhood experiences after they have developed SZ and recall can be inaccurate this means caution must be taken when interpreting the findings of studies into family dysfunction as a cause for SZ as they may lack validity
Cognitive explanation
Focuses on impaired information processing
Identified two types of dysfunctional though processes that underline some symptoms of SZ
Deficits in meta representation: describes the ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour so deficits in it would disrupt a persons ability to distinguish whether their thought originate from within themselves or from their external environment, this would explain hallucinations and delusions
Deficits in central control: ability to supress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions instead, disorganised speech could result in the inability to suppress these automatic thoughts and speech triggered by other thoughts
S: Supporting evidence, Stirling compares 30 patients with SZ with 18 controls who did not have SZ, all ppt completed a number of cognitive tasks including the Stroop test 9where the colour of a word is written in must be names even though the word is a different colour), found that ppt with SZ took much longer than ppt without SZ to complete these tasks that required sustained and focused attention, this shows that there is a relationship between impaired inf processing and SZ
L: Contradictory evidence, McKenna found that people with SZ do not seem to be any easier to distract than people without SZ when engaged on cognitive tasks, this challenged the idea that SZ is the result of cognitive deficits, in addition there is no evidence about the origin of dysfunctional cognition, therefore cognitive explanations can account for the symptoms but not the origins of the disorder
A03
ID: Can be criticised for being socially sensitive, family dysfunction states that the environment causes SZ, the cognitive explanation states that an individuals dysfunctional thought process leads to SZ, this means the psychological explanation for SZ places blames on the family or the individual patient which can lead to further stress, pressure and distress, therefore psychologists must be cautious when interpreting and publishing their findings
PA: Family therapy, CBT
O: Biological explanations