Psychological explanations

• What are the psychological explanations for schizophrenia?

  -Double bind theory

  -Expressed emotion

  -Cognitive
• What is the double bind theory?

  -Children who frequently receive contradictory messages from their parents are more likely to develop SZ

  -Messages are normally positive in the verbal form but negative in the non-verbal, means children cant form a coherent construction of reality.
• What is affective flattening?

  -Characterised by a significant reduction in emotional expression

  -People show minimal facial expressions, have a monotone voice and exhibit little or no emotional response to situations
• Strength of double bind - Evidence from Berger

  -Supporting research found those with sz reported receiving more double bind statements during childhood than those without, however retrospective data so unreliable

  -Implies exposure to mixed messages from family member that caused sz to occur
• Weakness- Contradictory research

  -Liem looked at patterns of family communication with sz child and found no difference when compared to non sz

  -Suggests that there is little evidence for double bind, may be other factors influencing
• How does expressed emotion explain schizophrenia?

  Communication style characterised by family of sz patient talking about them in a critical way and being overly emotionally involved in their life, high ee leads to 4x higher likelihood of relapse
• Why does high ee lead to higher relapse rates?

  Leads to people with sz experiencing stress past their already limited coping mechanisms, triggering an episode
• What is meant by term relapse rate?

  Time taken for a person to return to negative behaviour
• What negative impact do high levels of EE have on sz individual?

  -Talk more, listen less.

  -4 times more likely to relapse than those with lower EE
• What is the core idea of Double Bind theory?

  -Contradictory messages from parents can lead to sz
• What type of communication contradiction is most emphasised in Double Bind?

  -Contradiction between verbal and non verbal
• How does cognitive explanation explain sz?

  -Emphasis role of dysfunctional thought processing that is particularly in evidence in those showing positive symptoms of SZ
• How does cognitive explanation explain delusions?

  -Those with sz have an egocentric bias, leading them to see themselves at the centre of situations that do not involve them, causing misinterpretation.
• How does cognitive explanation explain hallucinations ?

  -Those with sz are more likely to misattribute the source of self generating auditory experiences as an outside experience
• Strength of cognitive- Myer-Linderberg

  -Found reduced activity in prefrontal cortex of sz when they did a task involving working memory.

  -Shows that there is a link between dysfunctional information processing and sz
• Issue of cognitive- Consequence rather than cause

  -Dysfunctional thinking could be a consequence of sz rather than a cause

  -Issue because it implies something else causes sz in first place, and its this factor that then leads to distortions in cognition
• Support of cognitive explanation - Hemsley

  -Suggested sz cannot distinguish between information that is already stores and new incoming information.

  -Results, sz are subjected to sensory overload and do not know which aspects of situation to attend to and which to ignore

  -Shows there is a link between dysfunctional information processing and sz