psychological explanations

•  Bateson et al (1956), who proposed the double bind explanation of schizophrenia. According to this explanation, children who often get conflicting messages from their parents are more likely to develop schizophrenia. Constant exposure to these mixed messages and impossible demands mean the child is unable to form a coherent picture of reality. This leads to disorganised thinking which in extreme cases can manifest as symptoms of schizophrenia such asdelusionsandhallucinations.
• Whilst dysfunction family communication may be an explanation of schizophrenia, EXPRESSED EMOTION (EE) explains why individuals diagnosed are MORE LIKELY TO RELAPSE WHEN THEY RETURN TO A HOME ENVIRONMENT as it MAINTAINS SCHIZOPHRENIA.
• •A HIGH DEGREE OF EXPRESSED EMOTION and emotional over-involvement about the individual in a critical or hostile manner from the carer is a serious source of stress for them. Schizophrenics have a lower tolerance for intense environmental stimuli and any such stress further impairs coping mechanisms triggering episodes. This may also trigger the onset of schizophrenia in genetically vulnerable individuals.
• Brown et al proposed that family interactions that involved high levels of expressed emotion and emotional over-involvement including hostility and criticism could play a key role in maintaining the schizophrenic behaviours. Kavanagh found that schizophrenics were far more likely to relapse in families that engages in high levels of ee.
• Psychological explanations suggest that the development of schizophrenia is due to abnormal family communication styles created by the schizophrenogenic mother, mixed messages according to double-bind theory, and the stress caused by high levels of expressed emotion. Despite none of these three factors explicitly causing schizophrenia, they are involved in its development and maintenance as contributory factors.
• Fromm-Reichmann suggested that there is a classic, schziophrenogenic mother who is characterised as being cold and rejecting. This means that the family climate is tense and lacking honesty, which leads to the development of paranoia and anxiety. These feelings manifest themselves in the (positive) schizophrenic symptom of paranoid delusions.
• • Double-bind theory (Bateson) suggests that within a family, the child receives mixed messages from both parents about what is right or wrong. The tense atmosphere or controlling parenting style means that the child is unable to clarify these messages or voice their opinions about the unfairness of conflicting messages.
• • Expressed emotion describes the level and type of emotion shown towards the patient by their carer, and is often a significant source of stress for the patient. This means that they are less likely to take their medication or comply to cognitive therapies provided by their hospital or institution, hence being a leading cause for relapse. Examples of high levels of negative expressed emotions include verbal criticism of the patient, needless ‘sacrifices’ for the patient and violence with hostility.
• Family Dysfunction refers to any forms of abnormal processes within a family such as conflict, communication problems, cold parenting, criticism, control and high levels of expressed emotions.
•  Prolonged exposure to mixed messages in family dysfunction prevents the development of an internally coherent construction of reality; in the long run, this manifests itself as typically schizophrenic symptoms such as flattening affect, delusions and hallucinations, incoherent thinking and speaking, and in some cases paranoia.
• A second strength of the research into expressed emotion (EE) is that it has practical applications. For example Hogarty (1991) produced a type of therapy session, which reduced social conflicts between parents and their children which reduced EE and thus relapse rates.

  This suggests that gaining an insight into family relationships allows psychiatric professionals to help improve the quality of patient’s lives.
• A weakness of the family relationsships appraoch is that there is a problem of cause and effect. Mischler & Waxler (1968) found significant differences in the way mothers spoke to their schizophrenic daughters compared to their normal daughters, which suggests that dysfunctional communication may be a result of living with the schizophrenic rather than the cause of the disorder