Psychological explanation

• Psychological explanations for SZ-

  Result of family dysfunctions = climate of family
• Psychological explanations for SZ-

  Schizophrenogenic mothers- (SZ causing mothers)

  • Fromm-Reichmannn - 1948
  • result if childhood issues - psychodynamic
  • mothers are: cold, rejecting, controlling
  • creates anxiety due to the tense/secretive environment
  • SKEWED FAMILY = passive father
  • symptoms = paranoid delusions, stress/anxiety
• Psychological explanation for SZ-

  Double-bind

  • Bateson - 1972
  • Poor communication style with family
  • Mixed messages of what’s right or wrong + punished by the withdrawal of love
  • Fear to ask + punishment = anxiety
  • Psychodynamic (childhood repression) + diathesis-stress model (potential + triggered by event)
  • symptoms: avolition, speech poverty, disorganised thoughts, paranoid delusions
• Psychological explanations for SZ-

  Expressed emotion - EE

  • negative emotions expressed by carers
  • verbal criticism, hostility, emotional over-involvement
  • increases the risk of relapse (SZ episode)
  • symptoms: paranoid delusions, avolition
• Psychological explanation for SZ-

  Evaluations -

  CPS- Kalafi + Tovabi (1996)- Iranian study = universal validity, negative emotion climate (EE)=relapse

  CPS- Read (2005)- insecure attachment in adults with SZ - family dysfunction, 46 studies of child abuse + SZ = 69% F, 59% M

  CPW- shows the correlation, not causation - childhood impact, memory/symptom failure
• Psychological explanations for SZ-

  Evaluations-

  CPS- Berger (1965)- higher recall of double bind with mother, than the control without SZ

  CPW- retrospection is invalid - symptoms could cause interference/contamination to memory

  W- unethical - Schizophrenogenic mothers, blames mums = socially sensitive + long-term effects/guilt - effects the ability to care, outdated, gender bias, reductionist
• Cognitive explanation for SZ-

  Dysfunctional thinking-

  • Disruption of normal thought processes
  • Reduced thought processing in the ventral striatum = negative symptoms
  • Reduced information processing in the temporal + cingulate gyri = hallucinations - Simon 2015
  • Each evens being lower than expected suggests that cognition will be impaired
• Cognitive explanation for SZ

  Metarepresentation dysfunction-

  • Frith - 1992
  • reduced ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviours + indented goals/intentions
  • can differentiate between your own and others actions
  • symptoms: auditory hallucinations, delusions
• Cognitive explanations for SZ-

  Central control dysfunction-

  • Frith - 1992
  • issues with the ability to suppress automatic responses while performing deliberate actions
  • e.g- hears a word and reacts to the trigger word automatically, when it can usually be suppressed
  • symptoms: speech poverty, thought disorder
• Cognitive explanation for SZ-

  S- Stirling - compared cognitive task performance with 30 participants - strop test (coloured words) - SZ=X2 longer to answer

  W- proximal explanation for symptoms - e.g genetics used without relations to childhood trauma

  W- lacks support from family based experiment (schizophrenogenic mothers, EE = parent blamed)