Psychology essay plan tailored to suit the AQA A-level Specification A syllabus.
The essay plans are colour coded to make revision slightly more interesting.
The essay plans are broken down into A01 and A02 criteria.
The A02 criteria has been broken down into research, approach, issue/debate.
R...
“Outline + evaluate 2 or more psychological
explanations of schizophrenia”
PSYCHODYNAMIC
A01 –
Freud believed schizophrenia was result of regression to a pre-ego stage +
attempts to re-establish ego control.
If the schizophrenic’s world had been particularly harsh (e.g. uncaring
parents) the individual may regress to an early stage in their development
before the ego was properly formed + they had developed a realistic
awareness of the external world.
Schizophrenia is an infantile state with some symptoms (e.g. delusions of
importance) reflecting this primitive condition + other symptoms (e.g.
auditory hallucinations) reflecting the persons attempts to re-establish
ego-control.
A02 –
RESEARCH 1 – Oltmanns et al (1999)
POINT – supports Freud’s psychodynamic explanation of schizophrenia.
EVIDENCE – showed how parents of schizophrenic patients behaved differently
from parents of other kinds of patient, particularly in the presence of their
schizophrenic offspring.
EXPLAIN – supports because it suggests the parent’s treatment of the
schizophrenic is different, so it could be this treatment that causes them to
regress to a pre-ego stage.
EVALUATE 1 – weakness – correlation/causation problem - difficult to distinguish
whether parent’s behaviour is the cause of the schizophrenia or a result of it –
weakens research support.
EVALUATE 2 – weakness – there’s very little other corroborating evidence for
Freud’s theory – weakens research support.
APPROACH – psychodynamic
STATE – Freud’s theory of schizophrenia takes the psychodynamic approach to
psychology.
EXPLAIN – the approach explains behaviour by relating it to unconscious forces.
Argue behaviour hides a hidden motive which reflect our instinctive biological
drives + our early experiences.
RELATE – this approach would explain schizophrenia as being the result of
mental regression into an earlier stage on mental development, one where the
ego has not yet properly formed.
EVALUATE – weakness – this approach can’t provide empirical evidence and its
concepts that it is founded on are abstract and have no real proof.
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