Psychological Explanation for Schizophrenia

References:

• https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lB4X3J17ObcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=a2+psychology&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WgXUVKOJLo_gaPafgYAD&sqi=2&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=a2%20psychology&f=false
• http://www.slideshare.net/NickyCBurt/psya4-schizophrenia
• http://www.slideshare.net/crystaldelosa/lesson-15-schizophrenia-psychological-and-socio-cultural-factors?related=1
• https://revisepsychology.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/7-socio-cultural-factors-effecting-schizophrenia/

Psychological Explanation for Schizophrenia

Beethoven won't stop SHOUTING in my head

The govvies is turning their backs, I'll be dead by tomorrow

IDA

How?

• Uncaring parents
• Bad childhood, abuse

• Reductive account
• Unfalsifiable
• Free will vs. Determinism
• ????
• Confidentiality

Schizophrenia is a faulty thought processing

Read,

2005

• Approach: Biological
• Ethical Issue: Revisiting Repressed Memories
• Low Temporal Validity Issue (Victorian Era)
• Low Population Issue: Case Studies

Those traitors don't believe me

I.

Psyhodynamic Theory

Freud (1924)

• Schizophrenia is caused by issues in the sub-conscious mind (between id and pre-ego)
• If someone experiences something particularly harsh, they may regress to a childlike state, before the ego was fully formed.
• This childlike state is what brings about the symptoms; delusions, grandeur etc.
• Such 'inner turmoil' causes schizophrenic behaviour

• Bentall et al. (1991) - Lab research confirms
• Physiological factor - Lindenberg et al. found a link between dopamine in the prefrontal cortex and working memory.
• Therefore: Cognitive explanation is reductive without the biological explanation

My 'information filter' is somewhat defective

I told my droogs about it

Evaluation:

-Face Validity

-Stirling and Hellewell suggest that the schizophrenic behaviour isn’t similar to an infants, this contradicts Freud’s theory.

-Impossible to test concepts such as Ego and ID

-CASE STUDIES

Right...

• Further link: Symptoms of Schizophrenia represent the ego's attempt to re-establish itself

My delusion is due to me experiencing reality in a different way

I saw a viddy blue unicorn

Psychodynamic Explanation

How about Cognitive Explanation?

Cognitive Explanation

Labelling Theory

Evaluation

• Rosenhan, 1973
• Once the label of schizophrenia had been applied, the diagnosis continued to influence the behaviour of staff towards the patient, even when this was no long warranted

Sociocultural Explanation:

Family environment may pose a risk of a child developing Schizophrenia

• Scheff, 1999

• ´Social groups construct rules for emmbers of their group to follow´

• People who display such behaviours may be labelled as schizophrenic

• Bizzare behaviours are seen as deviant

• This becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

There is no difference between the parental communication of families with a schizophrenic child and with a normal child

R.D. Laing

§ a reasonable response to an insane world §

Hirsch et al., 1996

Life events or Life changes triggers Schizophrenia

Bateson et al.

• Life Events
• Family Relationships: The Double Bind Theory and Expressed Emotion

Liem, 1974

Hall and Levin, 1980

• Followed 71 schizophrenia patients over a 48 week period
• Cumulative contribution in the preceding relapse rather than just one single major event

van Os et al.,

Correlational, not causational

Brown and Birley, 1968

§ Mom giving contradictory messages §

What causes Schizophrenia is not a major life event, but build up or accumulative stress or life events

1. Schizophrenic episode = occurs within 3 weeks of a major life event, or 9 weeks

2. No Schizophrenic episode = no major life events

Conclusion= Life events trigger the relapse of Schizophrenia

Kalafi and Torabi

§ EE in Iran triggers schizophrenic episode §