Psychological Explanations

• There is evidence for the relationship between family dysfunction and schizophrenia. Read et al (2005) reviewed 46 studies of child abuse and schizophrenia and concluded that 69% of adult woman in-patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia had a history of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or both in childhood. For men the figure was 59%. This shows that family dysfunction can be associated with a higher level of risk of developing schizophrenia in adulthood. This can help to develop schizophrenia therapies targeting childhood memories/trauma through psychotherapy.  
• A limitation of the family dysfunction explanation is that it has led to parent blaming. Parents, who have already suffered at seeing their child develop schizophrenia and who are likely to bear lifelong responsibility for their care, underwent further trauma by receiving the blame for their condition. The explanation ignores other possible causes of schizophrenia and, unethically, purely blames the patient’s family for their condition. This may lead to stigma in society where parents are shamed after their child is diagnosed with schizophrenia.  
• Although there is evidence supporting the broad principle that poor childhood experiences in the family are associated with adult schizophrenia, there is almost none to support the schizophrenogenic mother or double bind theory. Both theories are based on clinical observation of patients and early evidence involved assessing the personality of the mothers of patients for ‘crazy making characteristics. All collected data was subjective, so the studies were not in line with the scientific method. This weakens psychology’s existence as a science as its not scientific 
• Psychological explanations do not consider the role of biology in the development of schizophrenia. They are therefore reductionist as they are only focusing on psychological aspects of human experience and trying to explain the disorder through that. This is an issue as it makes the disorder purely environmental, reducing a complex disorder down to trivial causes and not considering the biological bases of schizophrenia. This begs further research in which an interactionist approach is taken, as using only one explanation may ignore treatment options for the other.