Topic Summaries

Psychological explanations for schizophrenia

A-Level > Psychology > AQA > A-Level Psychology Topic Summaries > Schizophrenia > Psychological explanations for schizophrenia
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  • Family dysfunction as a risk factor: suggests that maladaptive family environments contribute to the development of schizophrenia. Key theories associated with this include the schizophrenogenic mother, double-bind communication, and expressed emotion (EE).
    • Schizophrenogenic mother: 👥 Fromm-Reichmann (1948) proposed that a cold, rejecting, and controlling mother fosters an environment of tension and mistrust.Lack of warmth and honesty in communication creates feelings of insecurity. This dysfunctional dynamic may lead to paranoid delusions as the child perceives others as hostile or untrustworthy.
    • Double-bind theory: 👥 Bateson et al. (1956) found that when children receive contradictory messages (e.g. verbal approval paired with hostile tone), these conflicting signals cause confusion about what is right or wrong, leaving the child unable to resolve the inconsistency. Expression of frustration or questioning unfairness is discouraged or punished, resulting in feelings of helplessness, anxiety, and delusional thinking as the child perceives the world as threatening and unpredictable.
    • Expressed emotion: refers to the critical, hostile, or over-involved attitudes displayed by family members towards a person with schizophrenia. Highly expressive environments increase stress and reduce the individual’s ability to cope, leading to poorer treatment adherence (e.g. inconsistent medication use) and significantly higher risk of relapse.
    • Cognitive explanations – central control dysfunction: schizophrenia is associated with impairments in cognitive processes, particularly central control (the ability to suppress automatic responses to perform deliberate actions).The Stroop Test illustrates this: patients struggle to name the ink colour of words that spell a different colour (e.g.the word ‘red’ printed in blue). This difficulty demonstrates cognitive derailment and inability to filter irrelevant information, contributing to disorganised thought and speech in schizophrenia

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