schizophrenia - individual differences

• psychodynamic approach - fixation


  during the oral stage of psychosexual development the libido receives satisfaction from stimulation of the lips and mouth. Most of the time the libido's urges are satisfied by feeding from the mother's breast.

  
  

  However, if an infant receives too much or too little oral stimulation during this phase, they may become fixated. Freud proposed that individuals with schizophrenia become fixated during the first one or two months of the oral stage of development.
• psychodynamic approach - regression


  as an adult, most people satisfy any oral desires (from their libido) through activities such as kissing, smoking, chewing gum etc. However, if as an adult, an individual experiences excessive amount of stress the individual may indeed regress back to the oral stage.

  
  

  Regression is an ego defence mechanism which causes the ego to retreat back to an earlier stage (specifically the oral stage for schizophrenia). This may just be temporary or may continue over the long term.
• psychodynamic approach - losing touch with reality


  during the oral stage the ego is well developed. The role of the ego is to control the id's impulses and try to balance the demands of the id with the moral limitations imposed by the superego. However if an individual regresses back to a point where the ego effectively doesn't exist, there is nothing stopping the id from operating completely unimpeded.

  
  

  Symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations and delusions, then supposedly represent the unchecked activities of the id. The person supposedly loses touch with reality, being unable to distinguish between reality and their desires and fantasies. This state is little better than that of a new born infant, and as such the individual with schizophrenia is typified by the primary narcissism (a supposedly selfish instinct that guides our survival).

  
  

  whereas well-adjusted adults have well-developed egos that set limits of fantasy activity, this is not the case in adults with schizophrenia.
• psychodynamic approach - schizophrenogenic mother


  psychodynamic theorists consider the mother - child relationship to be one of the crucial factors in the development of schizophrenia.

  Freida Fromm-Reichmann (1948) wrote 'The schizophrenic is painfully distrustful and resentful of other people due to the severe early warp and rejection he encountered in important people in his infancy and childhood, as a rule mainly in a schizophrenogenic mother'.

  
  

  This concept proposes that the mothers of individuals who develop schizophrenia are overprotective and controlling bus at the same time rejecting ad distant. The mother's overprotection stifles the child's emotional development, while her emotional distance deprives the child of personal security, thereby leaving an individual who is very vulnerable when faced with stress.
• evaluation - Freudian concepts are out of date

  in the first half of the 20th century, psychology was dominated by psychodynamic explanations. However, as the century progressed, psychologists became dissatisfied with the unscientific, unfalsifiable nature of psychodynamic concepts.

  
  

  The psychodynamic approach has difficulty producing testable hypotheses, which has meant that the explanation it offers for disorders like schizophrenia is now viewed as being little more than an interesting

  historical footnote.

  
  

  If we cannot demonstrate the existence of the basic psychodynamic concepts such as id, ego and superego, how can we trust psychodynamic concepts to explain the existence of complex disorders like schizophrenia?
• evaluation - failure to produce an effective treatment

  from the start, Freud believed that individuals with schizophrenia were not not suitable candidates for psychoanalysis, as many individuals with schizophrenia lacked the insight necessary for this talking treatment. Later psychodynamic researchers, such as John Rosen (1947), proposed that schizophrenia could indeed be treated with psychoanalytical techniques.
• evaluation - failure to produce an effective treatment

  however, research (e.g. Strupp et al 1977) found that psychoanalytic therapies actually can lead to deleterious and harmful rather than beneficial effects in those with schizophrenia. This may be because psychoanalytic techniques often require the patient with schizophrenia to experience memories and insights that they are emotionally incapable of dealing with, and trying to do so is destressing for the patient.

  
  

  Ultimately, this suggests that if an effective therapy cannot be established from the theory, then the underlying principles of the explanation has no merit.
• evaluation - inconsistent support for schizophrenognegic mothers

  although the idea of the schizophrenogenic mother was quite a popular concept from the 1940s to the 1970s, the research base on which it resides is, at best, tenuous. Early research included one study by Jacob Kasanin et al (1934). He examined hospital case records and reported that he had found evidence of maternal overprotection in 33 out of 45 cases of schizophrenia. This means that almost a third of the cases didn't have an overprotective mother, making it rather unconvincing evidence. Furthermore his judgements may have been biased as he was not 'blind' to the hypothesis and may have lacked objectivity.
• evaluation - overlooks the role of genetics

  psychodynamic explanations suggest that the development of schizophrenia is the consequence of early experience, therefore a problem of nurture. However, there is strong evidence of biological factors in schizophrenia.
• evaluation - overlooks the role of genetics


  evidence also comes from adoption studies. For example, Leonard Heston (1966) reported on the diagnosis for schizophrenia in 47 adoptees who has a biological mother with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and 50 adoptees who did not have a biological mother with schizophrenia. Heston found that 10.6% of those who had a biological mother with schizophrenia were also diagnosed with schizophrenia, whereas 0% of those who did not have a biological mother with schizophrenia had been diagnosed.

  
  

  This suggests that it might be the co-occurrence of shared genes between mother and child, rather than how the mother raises the child, that is responsible for schizophrenia.