Dysfunctional Familys: Social exp

• Double-bind statements


  Psychologists suggest that schizophrenia symptoms may stem from family communication problems, particularly with parents. Schizophrenia can develop in children repeatedly exposed to conflicting messages without the chance to address or avoid them.
• Double-bind statement example


  • A father saying "I'd love to hear about your day at school" while watching TV sends mixed signals. These contradictions make it hard for the child to respond effectively.
• Expressed Emotion


  Psychologist Brown researched schizophrenia and found that the antipsychotic drug chlorpromazine helped stabilize patients, allowing them to be discharged from the hospital. However, Brown discovered that the 126 men who relapsed were strongly influenced by their living situation.
• High Expressed Emotion household


  • Contains critical comments, hostility, emotional over-involvement, low levels of warmth, low levels of positive support
• Men who returned to live with their wives or parents

  More likely to relapse than those who stayed with siblings
• Level of expressed emotion in the household

  Likelihood of relapse
• Not all studies find significant differences in communication difficulties in families of schizophrenics
• One researcher observed that parents of 11 sons with schizophrenia communicated no differently in a structured task than parents of 11 sons without schizophrenia
• The researcher suggests that studies showing differences might be detecting parents adapting their communication styles to cope with a schizophrenic child
• The double bind theory aims to explain the origins of dysfunctional communications, but there is little evidence to support this
• The double bind communications might be symptoms of a parent's underlying pathology, indicating that the pathology is the bigger issue
• Research supports the role of expressed emotion (EE) in schizophrenia relapse rates
• Researchers found that 53% of individuals with high EE relatives relapsed within nine months, compared to 12% with low EE relatives
• Not all studies support EE as a predictor, with one study finding no higher relapse rates at 6 and 12 months for those in high EE homes
• Explaining schizophrenia through family relationships is challenging because it could be due to either shared communication issues or shared genes
• Research found 108 genetic loci linked to schizophrenia, which seems to contradict the idea that family dynamics cause the disorder
• The diathesis-stress model suggests that family relationships might trigger schizophrenia in those who are genetically predisposed