Psychological explanation of schizophrenia

Schizophrenogenic mother:

Fromm-Reichmann (1948) mother is cold and rejecting. This leads to distrust that can develop into paranoid delusions.

Double bind theory:

Bateson (1972) when the child does something wrong they get a withdrawal of love (conditional communication). This leads to confusion and paranoid delusions.

Expressed emotion:

Level of negative emotion expressed by carer to person with SZ: verbal criticism, hostility and emotional over-involvement.

Support for family dysfunction

Read (2005) found 69% women and 59% men with SZ have a history of abuse.

Unreliable evidence

Plenty of scientific biological evidence. But, almost none for schizophrenogenic mother or double bind.

Dysfunctional thinking:

Simon (2015) reduced processing in the cingulate gyri to be associated with hallucinations.

Metarepresentation Dysfunction:

Frith (1992) identified two kinds of dysfunctional thought processes:

1. Metarepresentation = cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour, (our intentions).

2. Dysfunction = our ability to recognise our own actions, (hallucinations/delusions/thought insertion).

Central control dysfunction:

Frith (1992) identified issues with cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions.

For example speech poverty is because a person cannot suppress an automatic response to the association with the words.

Support for dysfunctional thought processing

Stirling (2006) 30 SZ patients, 30 control. Did stroop test, SZ patients took twice as long.

Only proximal explanation

Only explains current causes of schizophrenia symptoms, not their original cause, biological = guarantee.