Family dysfunction

• 2 concepts within family dysfunction


  - double bind

  - expressesd emotion
• Double binds


  When a person is given conflicting messages
• Paralanguage


  Non-verbal ways of expressing emotion such as gestures and body language
• Bateson's double bind theory

  Children who grow up encountering double bind statements regularly don't learn how to respond to conversations in a reasonable way
• What did Bateson believe double bind statements could lead to

  Hallucinations and delusions
• Evidence for double bind theory

  Berger (1965) - interviewed people with schizophrenia and a control group without and found that those with schizophrenia had higher recall of double bind statements from their mothers
• Challenge to double bind theory

  Ringuette & Kennedy - found that experts are no better at identifying double bind statements than non-experts so the concept of them may not be accurate
• Expressed emotion

  How families interact with each other
• High expressed emotion

  Critical, hostile and extreme emotions
• Low expressed emotion

  Show warmth and empathy, positive regard for each other
• Mischler (1968)

  found that mothers were 'aloof and unresponsive' when talking to their daughters with schizophrenia, suggesting that EE may be a result of schizophrenia
• Vaughn & Leff (1976)

  Found higher levels of relapse in high EE families than low EE families, suggesting that there is a relationship between them
• Positive evaluation of the family dysfunction explanation

  - can explain why SZ runs in families

  - led to the development of family therapy
• Negative evaluation of the family dysfunction explanation

  - research comes from self reports or controlled observations so lacks validity

  - doesn't explain the cause of schizophrenia

  - blaming the family may be unethical