Family dysfunction

• Family Dysfunction


  Abnormal processes within a family such as poor communication and cold parenting that contribute to developing schizophrenia
• Schizophrenogenic Mother

  • Mother that is cold, rejecting and controlling
  • Creates an environment that is full of tension and secrecy
  • Leads to distrust that later develops into paranoid delusions leading to schizo
• Double Bind Theory

  • Child are trapped in situations where they fear to do the wrong thing as they receive mixed messages
  • Child is punished by withdrawal of love
  • Leads to disorganised thinking and paranoid delusions
• Expressed emotion

  • Negative emotions expressed towards the patient by the family
  • Verbal criticism which may be accompanied by violence
  • Hostility towards patient including rejection and anger
  • Emotional over involvement including needless self sacrifice
  • Leads to stress and leads to high relapse rates
• AO3 Family Dysfunction: Support from Double Bind Theory

  • Schizophrenics reported a higher recall of double bind statements by their mothers compared to non schizophrenics
  • May not be reliable as the patients recall may be affected by the schizophrenia itself undermining these findings
• AO3 Family Dysfunction: Research Support

  • Indicators of family dysfunction include insecure attachment and exposure to childhood trauma such as abuse
  • Schizophrenic adults are more likely to have insecure attachment
  • More than half of the schizo men and women have had an account of physical and sexual abuse
  • Family dysfunction makes people more vulnerable to schizo
• AO3 Family Dysfunction: Validity undermined and parent blaming

  • Information about childhood experiences has generally been gathered after the development of symptoms
  • Schizophrenia itself may have distorted the patients recall of childhood experiences which raises the problem of validity undermining the explanation
  • The dysfunctional family explanation has historically led to 'parent blaming' raising ethical issues
  • Parents have gone through the trauma of watching their children develop schizophrenia and bear the lifelong responsibility for their care
• AO3 Family Dysfunction: Issue with cause and effect

  • Having a schizophrenic within the family can be stressful and problematic on family relationships itself
  • Rather than dysfunctions within the families causing schizophrenia, it may well be that having someone with the disorder leads to family dysfunction as they struggle to cope
  • This is a major issue with correlational data as you cannot be certain of cause and effect
• AO3 Family Dysfunction: Real World Application

  • Supported by family therapy which successfully focus on reducing expressed emotions within the family
  • Leads to low relapse rates when compared with other therapies suggesting the explanation does have validity
  • However it could be argued that this merely masks the symptoms or teaches family members to tolerate them
  • It does not provide an effective solution for the disorder