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Schizophrenia, Co-Morbidity: (issue for reliability) - the presence of one…
Schizophrenia
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Biological Treatments
Typical Drugs: chlorpromazine - bind to dopamine receptors and block their action - reduces the level of dopamine and reduces positive symptoms
Atypical Drugs: clozapine - temporarily block dopamine receptors before allowing normal dopamine transmission - reducing positive symptoms - also affect serotonin levels which reduce negative symptoms
AO3: Strength - supporting research - study found that when given a typical antipsychotic symptoms were reduced more compared to a placebo group - qualitative data that supports the effectiveness of the drugs
AO3: Strength - effectiveness of atypical drugs - clozapine a more successful treatment than typical antipsychotics by 30-50%
AO3: Weakness - side effects e.g. tardive dyskinesia (movement disorder) - affects around 30% with 75% being irreversible - leads to people stopping the medication and suggests drugs aren't the best treatment
Psychological Explanations of Schizophrenia: Family Dysfunction - risk of schizophrenia increases due to abnormal patterns of communication within the family
Double-Bind Hypothesis: when the child receives contradictory messages from parents - feel trapped - fear doing what is wrong but don't know what the wrong thing even is - can lead to disorganised thinking and paranoid delusions - risk factor rather than the sole cause of schizophrenia
High Expressed Emotions:
high level of negative emotion expressed towards a patient by their carer such as verbal criticism, hostility, emotional over-involvement - high EE causes stress which can trigger the onset of schizophrenia as well as lead to poorer treatment outcomes and higher chances of relapse
Schizophrenogenic Mother:
cold, rejecting, controlling mother which causes a tense environment with high secrecy - manifests into paranoid delusions - family skew of a dominant mother and passive father
AO3: Strength - supporting evidence for the role of high EE - study on adopted children with genetic risk to disorder compared to control group - group with genetic risk had more of a likelihood to develop the disorder but those raised in a healthy adoptive family had less of a chance even with the genetic risk - shows genetics play a part but environment can also have an effect
AO3: Strength - real world applications - development of family therapy which has been found to be more effective at treating with a lower relapse rate - benefited real peoples lives
AO3: Strength - supporting evidence for double bind hypothesis - study asked sufferers about their mothers and found more evidence for double-bind with the schizophrenic sufferers compared to the control group - suggests it plays a role
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Psychological Explanations of Schizophrenia: Cognitive Explanation - based on mental processes and explains symptoms of schizophrenia through disruption of normal thought processing - dysfunctional thought processing in people with schizophrenia (process information different to others)
Meta representation: cognitive ability to reflect on our own thoughts and behaviour - dysfunction in meta representation contributes to the onset of hallucinations e.g. people believe their actions are being carried out by others
Central Control: cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses whilst we perform deliberate actions instead - could lead to disorganised speech and thought disorder could stem from the inability to supress automatic responses
AO3: Strength - supporting evidence found that 75% of schizophrenics have cognitive impairments - shows clear evidence to support the cognitive explanation as it demonstrates the impairments are present in those with schizophrenia
AO3: Strength - real world applications - such as the development of cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis which s extremely effective - benefitted peoples lives by helping them develop strategies to improve and cope with their disorder
AO3: Weakness - medication could be the cause - medication for schizophrenia has serious side effects that could account for the deficits found in schizophrenic patients
AO3: Weakness - alternative explanations - biological explanation e.g. neural correlates and enlarged ventricles
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Classification of Schizophrenia:
Definition: serious mental disorder characterised by severe disruptions in psychological functioning e.g. delusions, hallucinations, disorganised speech, and behaviour
How is it classified: either with the DSM-5 or the ICD-10 - each system of classification differs in the criteria needed to be considered schizophrenia
DSM-5 Criteria for Classification:
Criterion A - two or more symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, disorganised speech, negative symptoms, disorganised or catatonic behaviour) for a significant period of time during a month
Criterion B - reduction in one or more major areas of functioning e.g. work, self-care etc
Criterion C - continuous signs of disturbance must persist for at least 6 months during which there are signs of at least 1 month of active symptoms
Co-Morbidity: (issue for reliability) - the presence of one or more additional disorder or disease simultaneously with schizophrenia - e.g. 50% also have depression and 47% have anxiety - suggests schizophrenia is not a separate disorder - leads to professionals giving different diagnoses of the same patient
AO3: Strength - Large body of evidence to suggest that many sufferers also have issues of substance abuse - study found 50% of schizophrenics also had depression or substance abuse - demonstrates the complexities involved in a reliable diagnosis as they don't know if the symptom is because of the schizophrenia or the drug abuse
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