1. Schizophrenia: Psychological explanations

2. Starter Using your memory of psychological approaches (not your booklets), how do you think the following approaches might explain schizophrenia: 1.BEHAVIOURISM (E.G. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY) 2.PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH. 3.COGNITIVE APPROACH.

3. Psychodynamic explanation Recap of key terms Caused by an ego defence mechanism called regression. Freud believed that if a child is raised by cold or uncaring parents, their Ego will attempt to protect them from the trauma this causes. A person brought up in a cold, uncaring environment overuses their defence mechanisms, which ‘shatters’ the ego, leaving the Id in charge of the personality. The person becomes totally focussed on themselves, to the extent that they lose touch with reality.

4. Psychodynamic explanation Family systems theory Fromm-Reichman (1948) proposed that schizophrenia was cause by “schizophrenogenic families”, and in particular schizophrenogenic mother (a mother who causes schizophrenia). These mothers, she suggested, seem to convey conflicting messages to the child. They are cold and distant, but dominating and severe. They were often rejecting of the child but still demanded that the child show emotional expression. Concepts from this theory have been developed more recently. Look up and make notes on the following:  Double bind theory  Expressed emotion

5. Psychodynamic explanation Evaluation The ‘androcentric’ nature of Freud’s theories, heaping much of the blame on the mothers, has attracted much criticism. A great deal of research has shown that the vast majority of schizophrenic sufferers of from warm loving homes. Presumably, if psychodynamic theory can explain why schizophrenia has occurred, it can propose a way to cure it. So far, there have been no real breakthroughs with sufferers of schizophrenia who have undergone therapy.

6. Homework Finish worksheet 3 for first lesson next week (13B- Monday; 13E Tuesday).

7. Cognitive models ALL have one common idea: that schizophrenia is caused by disorganised or disordered thinking. One of the most important general cognitive theories of schizophrenia is the attention deficit theory. According to Frith (1979), schizophrenia is the result of a faulty attention system. Preconscious thought (i.e. thought that occurs without awareness) contains huge quantities of information from our senses that would normally be filtered.

8. Cognitive models Frith’s model continued Schizophrenia may be the result of a breakdown of this filtering process, resulting in overload. Thoughts that would usually be filtered out as irrelevant or unimportant are now interpreted in conscious awareness as more significant than they really are. For Frith this accounts for the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations, delusions and disorganised speech. According to Frith (1992) cognitive deficits are caused by abnormalities in those areas of the brain that uses use dopamine, especially the prefrontal cortex. He showed that schizophrenics have reduced blood flow to these areas (indicating reduced brain activity) during certain cognitive tasks.

9. Cognitive models Bentall (1994) argued that schizophrenics have attentional bias towards stimuli of a threatening and emotional nature, so stimuli associated with violence, pain etc. Helmsley’s (1993) model states that schizophrenia arise from a disconnect between our schemas (expectations of certain situations) and actual sensory input. In people with schizophrenia, this differentiation between schemas and new situations does not occur. There is a confusion between internal events and external stimuli and can result in the experience of hallucinations.

10. Cognitive explanations Evaluation SUPPORT Some support for Bentall’s cognitive processing bias theory. For example, research has shown that schizophrenics are more sensitive than normal control participants in judging whether a photograph showing painful electric shock being administered to someone is genuine or involves an actor. LIMITATIONS It has been suggested that this sensitivity is due to stimuli receiving greater processing. Generally cognitive theory lacks experimental support. Describes rather than explains. Disordered thinking: cause or effect? A key principle of science is that a theory should account for all the data, but adopt the simplest explanation possible (law of parsimony). Does the cognitive explanation achieve this?

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