psychological exp for sz

• family dysfunction

  • schizophrenogenic mother
  • double-bind
  • expressed emotion
• schizophrenogenic mother


  developed by fromm-reichmann
• schizophrenogenic mother


  cold, rejecting and controlling, creates a family climate of tension and secrecy, this leads to distrust and paranoid delusions
• double-bind theory

  developed by bateson et al
• double-bind theory

  child finds themselves trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing, receive mixed messages
• double-bind theory

  when they get it wrong, they are punished through the withdrawal of love, leaving them confused with their understanding of the world, leading to disorganised thinking and paranoid delusion
• bateson et al


  believed that communication was a significant factor within the family
• expressed emotion


  verbal criticism of person, accompanied by violence

  hostility towards person, anger and rejection

  emotional over-involvement in the life of the person
• expressed emotion


  creates high levels of stress which can trigger onset schizophrenia in someone with a biological vulnerability
• expressed emotion 


  is an explanation for relapse
• dysfunctional thinking

  reduced thought processing in the ventral striatum is associated with negative symptoms

  reduced processed information in the temporal and cingulate gyri is associated with hallucinations
• frith identified two types of dysfunctional thought processes

  metarepresentation dysfunction and central control dysfunction
• metarepresentation dysfunction


  the inability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour, this would disrupt ability to recognise our own actions

  this explains auditory hallucinations of hearing voices
• central control dysfunction

  inability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions

  speech poverty and thought disorder could result to the inability to suppress automatic responses