psychological explanations

• family dysfunction - double bind theory

  Bateson - children who receive contradictory messages from parents are more likely to develop sz - e.g. if a mother tells son she loves him but turns her head away on disgust - contradictions mean child regularly finds themselves trapped in situations where they fear doing wrong but receive mixed messages of how to think or behave - leaves child with understanding of world as confusing and dangerous, later reflected in symptoms like paranoid delusions
• Family dysfunction - expressed emotion

  level of emotion expressed towards sz sufferer by family - shown in different ways including: verbal criticism of patient and hostility towards them (anger/rejection), emotional over involvement in life of patient including needless self sacrifice - primarily linked to course of disorder rather than cause - high levels of EE found to lead to poorer outcomes and increased likelihood of relapse and return to psychotic experiences for patient
• FAMILY DYSFUNCTION EVALUATION - double bind - Berger

  found schizophrenics reported higher recall of double bind statements from mothers than non schizophrenics - contradictory messages may increase risk of sz in later life
• FAMILY DYSFUNCTION EVALUATION - EE - Tienari


  assessed adopted children whose biological mother had sz compared to control group of adoptees with no risk - found when parenting style of adoptive family was characterised as highly critical with low levels of empathy, greatly increased risk of sz but reared as healthy adoptive family had protective effect on those at a high genetic risk - EE can increase risk but low EE family can help prevent sz
• FAMILY DYSFUNCTION EVALUATION - practical applications

  focus on role of family in sz led researchers to develop family therapy to increase patients chance of recovery and decrease chances of relapse - NICE found relapse rate in family therapy condition was 26% compared to 50% in control group with standard care - led to psychological theories benefitted real peoples lives
• cognitive explanations

  argue symptoms result of dysfunctional though processing - sufferers process information differently to those without the disorder - specific symptoms can be linked to disruption to specific cognitive process
• cognitive explanations - egocentric bias

  causes people to rely too heavily on their own viewpoint when examining events in their life or when trying to see things from others viewpoints - causes people to underestimate how different other people's viewpoint is from their own or to ignore them entirely - sufferers interpret external events as having personal significance to them or it being their fault - e.g. doing something embarrassing, egocentric bias can cause you to overestimate degree to which other people are likely to notice it - may lead to paranoia, delusions and hallucinations
• cognitive explanations - central control

  ability to suppress or override automatic thoughts, actions and speech in response to stimuli and replace with a deliberate action - if you saw a button, may feel an urge to press it (stroop effect) - patients with schizophrenia may not be able to supress this urge and will press it - could cause symptoms like disorganised speech as each word thought of triggers association with another, can lead to incoherent sentences and word salad
• COGNITIVE EVALUATION - Sarin and Wallin


  reviewed recent evidence and found support for the idea that delusional patients showed various biases in their information processing, like jumping to conclusions - shows there is a wide support from different studies for the idea that sz symptoms are rooted in cognitive disruption
• COGNITIVE EVALUATION - practical applications 


  helped in development of CBTp which has been extremely effective in treating sz - evidence comes from NICE who reviewed a range of treatments and found compared with antipsychotic drug therapy CBTp was far more effective in reducing symptom severity and improving social functioning - benefitted real peoples lives
• PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION - fails to take into account role of biological factors


  e.g. strong evidence that genetics, neurotransmitters such as dopamine or even abnormalities in the brain could be associated with the development of schizophrenia - biological factors cannot be ignored and a more holistic approach must be considered - interactionist approach more effective which considers psychological and biological factors
• PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION - less determinist than biological


  means an individuals actions aren't controlled by factors outside of their control - could be less humane as it blames the sufferer (or family) for developing and causing disorder and symptoms - positive as sufferer is in control of experience of symptoms and can change thoughts and manage own illness