5 PEEL paragraphs on evaluating family therapy as a psychological treatment for schizophrenia, including strengths and weaknesses and a balanced conclusion for top band marks
may be life-threatening as this damages the immune system and makes it more
vulnerable to other illnesses that may be easily cured. Lieberman et al. (2005) report
that patients stop taking medication because of the side effects. This highlights the
problems of side effects when treating schizophrenia with drugs as these may not be
effective if they are not taken and may cause more discomfort to the patient. On the
other hand, antipsychotics may act as depot injections which stop the “revolving door
phenomenon”. This means that the patient does not have to go to the psychiatric
hospital every time they experience a symptom, which may help them to recover
gradually and gain more independence in their lives as they don’t have to worry about
their symptoms.
In conclusion, antipsychotic medication blocks dopamine receptors which have
been associated with the onset of schizophrenia, preventing dopamine binding to them,
which calms neurons down. Typical antipsychotics may have more side effects such as
tardive dyskinesia, which decreases the likelihood of patients complying with the
medication in the long term. However, atypical antipsychotics can be taken instead as
they have fewer side effects and may be more effective. Nonetheless, more effective
drugs should be made to have less severe side effects and be more effective for most
patients with schizophrenia who are treatment resistant.
Evaluate 1 psych treatment for SZ (20)
One weakness of family therapy is that it is often carried out with drug therapy.
The family is educated on the causes of the patient’s mental illness to break down
concerns about blame for the development of psychosis in schizophrenia, so that they
have a better understanding of the behaviours shown by the patient. In this way, they
can learn that the symptoms of schizophrenia can’t be controlled by the patient during
an episode of psychosis. It may be argued that the patient’s improvement in symptoms
may only result from the medication they’re taking throughout family therapy. This is
because medication for schizophrenia such as clozapine, has been demonstrated to be
effective in many studies even without family therapy. This is a weakness as it implies
that the patient only needs medication to manage their symptoms of schizophrenia, and
involving their family might be pointless and time-consuming. However, family therapy
alone is not designed to relieve symptoms but to reduce the amount of expressed
emotion and prevent relapse through medication compliance and support. This may be
true since through the support of their family, a patient may be more likely to continue
with their medication and experience an improvement in their symptoms.
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