COGNITIVE/THOUGHT DISORDER AO1

• introduction to thought disorder linking to schizophrenia

  Schizophrenia can be explained through the cognitive approach. The cognitive approach offered logical explanations based on malfunctions in cognitive systems such as perception, attention and working memory.
• Frith (1979) proposed that the core positive symptoms of schizophrenia could be explained by difficulties in inhibiting preconscious content, he called this the lack of preconscious filters theory or ‘Attention Deficit Theory’. Normally, our senses receive a tremendous amount of information from our environment, this information reaches our awareness, and we interpret it (in our preconscious). The ‘best fit’ of the incoming information gets pushed into our consciousness, allowing us to make sense of the information.
• Frith proposed that in some people the attentional filters that prevent most of the sensory information from making it out of the preconscious are defective. Frith claims that this leads individuals with schizophrenia to ‘become aware of ambiguous and multiple interpretations of events and find it difficult to select and carry through an appropriate course of action.’
• Frith proposed the compromised theory of mind explanation. The symptoms seen in schizophrenics are the result of disorders within three separate cognitive systems:

  1. The disorders of willed action (i.e., voluntary behaviour) can explain negative and disorganised symptoms of schizophrenia.
  2. Disorders of self-monitoring can explain symptoms such as delusions of alien control and vocal/auditory hallucinations.
  3. Disorder of monitoring other persons’ thoughts and intentions, can lead to symptoms such as delusions of persecution.
• Frith (1992) argues that some of the cognitive impairments shown by schizophrenics are due to a faulty Theory of Mind. Schizophrenics do not have a clear grasp of their own minds and that they misunderstand their own thought processes. Unable to distinguish between actions that are brought about through external forces, and those that are generated internally.