Psychological explanations for SZ AO1

• what are the areas of dysfunctional families which explain SZ?

  • Schizophrenogenic mothers
  • Double-bind theory
  • Expressed Emotion
• what are schizophrenogenic mothers?

  • Fromm-Reichmann - mothers overly dominant in home, controlling and overprotective, cold and distant
  • overprotection stifles child's development, and their distance leaves child feeling emotionally insecure
  • mixed messages and general distrust could lead to paranoia and delusions (believe you're being persecuted by someone)
  • Lidz and Lidz - suggest mother-child relationship was disordered in cases where child is SZ
• what does double-bind theory refer to?

  • explains SZ as being the consequence of abnormal and inadequate patterns of communication within the families of SZ
  • if a child is repeatedly exposed to this sort of communication, they become unable to respond logically to others
• what did Bateson 1956 suggest?

  • families of SZs communicate in a destructively ambiguous fashion
• what is paralanguage?

  • tone of voice
  • body language
  • facial expression
  • may not match with words said
• what are the consequences of a double-bind?

  • child gets two separate messages, as these two messages contradict each other, causes conflict, whatever child's action, they can't win
  • child learns they have no idea how to respond in a reasonable way in conversation
  • they will grow up believing this is how normal relationships work, and in the future they will struggle to establish normal relationships
• what did Bateson argue?

  • double-bind statements could lead to hallucinations and delusions
• what could DB cause in context of thinking?

  • cause child to respond with maladaptive thinking patterns to help them navigate social situations ' all statements are derogatory towards me' or 'all things said to me contain hidden meanings that are harmful'
• what did Berger find?

  • interviewed schizophrenics, and found that they had a higher recall of double-bind statements by their mothers than non-SZ controls
• what is expressed emotion?

  • families who engage in EE show high levels of criticism, hostility and emotional over-protectiveness
  • includes - verbal criticism, even violent, anger, rejection and needless self-sacrifice
• what is communication that is low EE characterised by?

  warmth and unconditional positive regard
• what did Karanagh find?

  • SZ in families with high EE were 4 times more likely to relapse compared with those who lived in families of low EE
• what are areas of cognitive explanations that explain SZ?

  • metarepresentation dysfunction
  • central control dysfunction
• what is an introduction of cognitive explanations?

  • problems with internal mental processes causes mental illness
  • dysfunctional thinking
  • SZ - problems with cognition, perception, language or attention
  • impairments with processing emotion, social cue and ToM
• what did Frith suggest about metarepresentation dysfunction?

  • Schizophrenics misattribute their inner voice to the outside world
  • cognitive deficits were linked to an irregularity in the neuronal pathways between frontal areas concerned with action and more posterior areas that control perception
  • cognitive impairments shown by schizophrenics are due to faulty ToM
• what is Theory of Mind?

  • the ability to understand that we have our own minds, that others have their own minds and that our minds are different and distinct
  • helps us understand our own desires and points of view are not necessarily the same as others
  • we also understand that other people may not have access to the information we have
• when does ToM develop?

  • not born with ToM
  • starts developing at 2-3 years old
  • not fully formed till later
  • younger children are unable to understand that other people have minds separate from their own
• what does ToM suggest about our actions?

  • that we are able to understand that our actions and thoughts are caused by ourselves, and are generated internally rather than by our external forces
• what areas of faulty ToM did Frith suggest schizophrenics have?

  • don't have clear grasp of own mind, so misunderstand our own thought process
  • unable to distinguish between actions that are brought about through external forces, and those generated internally
  • experiences of control
  • all are dysfunctions of metarepresentation
• what cognitive processes did Frith suggest could explain most SZ symptoms?

  • inability to generate willed actions - explains avolition
  • inability to monitor will action - unaware of 'sense of effort', thinks actions are caused by external forces, motivation/intention inaccessible
  • inability to monitor the beliefs/intentions of others - misunderstanding - delusions of persecution
• what evidence did Frith find to suggest disconnect in neural pathways caused SZ?

  • brain scanning evidence
• what are main areas in central control dysfunction?

  • lack of preconscious filters
  • attention bias
• what did Frith suggest about lack of preconscious filters?

  • Frith 1979 - attention deficit theory, SZ is a result of the breakdown of though filtering process, issues with attention so not able to effectively filter non-pertinent information, inability to properly focus causes disordered thinking, can account for hallucinations, delusions and disorganised speech
• what is lack of preconscious filters?

  • things in the environment that would usually be filtered out as irrelevant/unimportant are now interpreted in conscious awareness as more significant than they really are
  • may be caused by abnormalities in areas of brain that use dopamine, especially prefrontal cortex
  • Friths research has shown that schizophrenics have reduced blood flow to these areas
• what did Bentall 1994 suggest?

  • schizophrenics have attention bias towards stimuli of a threatening and emotional nature e.g. violence, pain etc
  • more likely to perceive a stimuli as threatening when it isn't - could explain paranoid delusions
  • inability of SZs to effectively focus their attention on the appropriate elements of the environment may also account for problems with memory recall of events - not attending world in a logical way so memories are incomplete/incomprehensible