Interactionist Approach

• Interactionist Approach


  Suggests that the development of schizophrenia is due to combined effects of interaction between biological and social/psychological factors and treatment is most effective when combined
• Diathesis Stress Model


  Psychological concept that a disorder is due to the predispositional vulnerability and an environmental trigger later in life

  • Diathesis - genetic vulnerability, dopamine imbalance
  • Stress - family dysfunction, anxiety, major adverse life event
• Interactionist Approach to Treatment

  Combining CBT and drug therapies to address both causes, reducing symptoms and giving cognitive skills to change their underlying faulty cognitions
• (+) A03: Gottesman (1991)


  Concordance rates of schizophrenia

  • MZ = 48%
  • DZ = 17%

  Suggesting biological root but not 100% so must be environmental also
• (-) A03: Reduced Confidence


  An explanation for the mechanism of environmental triggers reacting with genetics is still underdeveloped, reducing the confidence of the interactionist approach being an explanation
• (-) A03: Treatment Limitations


  Time consuming, Ecnomic Implications, Side Effects
• (+) A03: Tarrier (1998)



  Placed patients in random routine care (antipsychotics), CBT or combined treatment

  • Combined treatment significantly improved positive symptoms

  Better when combined, supporting idea of interactionist approach
• (+/-) A03: Tienari (2004)


  Studied biological children of schizophrenic mothers who had been adopted

  • 5.8% of children adopted into healthy families developed
  • 36.8% of children raised by dysfunctional families developed

  Supports genetic idea of Schizophrenia through interactionist approach