The importance of family relationships in development of SZ can be seen in an adoption study
In the study those adopted children who had schizophrenic biological parents were more likely to become ill themselves compared to the children with non-biological parents. However the difference only emerged when the adopted family was rated as disturbed. Illness emerged due to environmental conditions
General AO3 - other support
Study reviewed 46 studies of child abuse and schizophrenia and concluded that 69% of adult woman patients with a diagnosis of SZ had a history of childhood abuse. For males it was 59%.
General AO3 - weak evidence
Double blind is based on clinical observation of the patients an early evidence involved assessing the personality of the mothers for 'crazy-making characteristics'
General AO3 - weak evidence
A problem with the theory is that its led to parent-blaming. Parents who have already suffered at seeing their child experience SZ and who are likely to bear life long responsibility for their care underwent further trauma by receiving blame for the condition
