Dysfunctional Thought Processing

Lack of metarepresentation

Frith et al.

They don't recognise thoughts/actions as being carried out by themselves

e.g. insertion delusions (thoughts are projected into their minds by others), auditory hallucinations

Lack of central control

Frith et al.

Can't supress automatic responses when performing actions

e.g. speech poverty/disorganised thoughts (not being able to supress automatic thoughts/responses triggered by other thoughts)

AO3

(+) Research support

(-) Only explains proximal origins of symptoms, not distal

- Provides excellent explanations for symptoms of Sz

(+) Research support

Stirling et al.

Compared performance at cognitive tasks in 30 people with Sz and 30 without (control)

-included stroop task, people have to say font-colour not colour-word, supress tendency to read word aloud

Sz took twice as long as control

-supports Frith's lack of central control theory

Increase validity, credible explanation

(-) Only explains proximal origins of symptoms, not distal

Proximal: only explains what happened in the moment

Distal: focuses on initial cause for the condition (e.g. role of genetics)

-used to create treatments or establish preventative measures

Only explaining prox. gives it limited explanatory power, only partial exp

Provides excellent explanations for symptoms of Sz

Outline previously by researchers like Frith and Stirling

CP: Doesn't explain what causes DT originally

A number of factors not included (e.g. family dysfunction, childhood trauma, genetic vulnrebilities)

Best to explain as bio disorder which gives rise to cognitive distortions

-> supported by best tretament being biological (typical/atypical antipsychotics)