Psychology Schizophrenia essay. 16 marker - 'Discuss the psychological explanation of Schizophrenia'. Scored 15/16. For the AQA Psychology A-level course.
Discuss psychological explanations for Schizophrenia (16 marks)
The psychological explanation of Schizophrenia argues that the disorder is caused by
dysfunction, either within the family or cognitively. The family dysfunction aspect of the
psychological explanation states that Schizophrenia is caused by the dynamics of the
relationships between parents and children, which has knock-on effects in adulthood. One
theory of family dysfunction is the Schizophrenogenic Mother, which was proposed by
Fromm-Reichmann, and states that having a cold and controlling mother who is both
rejecting and overprotective causes confusion within children, which later develops as
Schizophrenia. The cognitive dysfunction aspect of the psychological explanation believes
that Schizophrenia is caused by deficits in mental processes. An element of this is having a
faulty central control. Central control is the ability to suppress or override automatic
thoughts, actions and speech in response to stimuli. Within Schizophrenia patients this
self-control has been found to be lacking (often affecting speech, linking to the symptom of
word salad), meaning that they have a faulty central control.
One weakness of the psychological explanation of Schizophrenia is that family dysfunction is
socially sensitive, meaning that the theories made can have implications for certain groups in
society. For example, the Schizophrenogenic mother places all the blame onto the mother, by
stating that Schizophrenia is directly caused by the parenting of the mother. This may
negatively impact mothers of Schizophrenia patients, who may already be dealing with the
stress of having to care/provide for their child with Schizophrenia. In placing all the blame on
the mother, this may increase their stress levels and guilt, which can affect them negatively
both mentally and physically. Thus, family dysfunction and the psychological explanation of
Schizophrenia can be considered socially sensitive as it can have negative implications for
groups in society, such as mothers, making the theories ethically unsound.
One strength of the psychological explanation of Schizophrenia is that there is supporting
evidence for the role of cognitive dysfunction. Striling et al., compared performance on a
range of cognitive tasks in 30 people with Schizophrenia and 30 people without. Tasks
included the Stroop task, where you name the font colour that the word is written in, having
to suppress the tendency to read the words aloud. Results showed that people with
Schizophrenia took over twice as long to name the font colours. This supports the idea that
faulty central control causes Schizophrenia, as the Schizophrenia patients took longer to
identify the font colour because they struggled to suppress their initial thoughts, which were
to read the word written. Thus, this increases the validity of the psychological explanation of
Schizophrenia as it shows how faulty central control can be linked to Schizophrenia patients,
meaning that the cognitive dysfunction element has accurately explained Schizophrenia in the
way it intended to. However, a counterargument of this is that the study is correlational. This
means that we cannot say for certain that having a faulty central control is what caused the
Schizophrenic patients to take twice as long. Thus, meaning that we cannot establish a
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