Outline And Evaluate Psychological Explanations For Schizophrenia
Outline and evaluate psychological explanations for schizophrenia (24)
One psychological explanation of SZ was put forward by Bateson et al (1956) who looked at childhood as a base for developing SZ, for example the interactions children have with their mothers. His explanation, the Double Bind theory, states that schizophrenia can occur due to conflicting messages given from parents to their children, for example when a parent expresses care but does so in a critical way. This means that the child will become confused as the message they are given is conflicting, as one message effectively invalidates the other. As a result, the child is left with self doubt and eventual withdrawal. Experiences such as these are said to cause schizophrenia as they prevent the development of an internally coherent construction of reality, in the end they are likely to experience schizophrenic type symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations, and in some cases, paranoia. This theory therefore suggests that the home environment and the relationships a child has with their parents through messages plays a role in the development of schizophrenia. This is because there is no clear template of a loving relationship; instead the child is always unsure if they have done something wrong due to the conflicting messages they are given. A strength of this theory is the supporting evidence from Berger. He found that schizophrenic patients reported a higher recall of double bind statements (conflicting messages) by their mothers than non schizophrenic patients. However this reliability of this study was criticised as patients recall may be affected by their schizophrenia. There are said to be problems as it is called a retrospective recall, as the data is unreliable. For example, delusions may occur meaning that the patients are recalling things that didn’t happen. Another criticism of the Double Bind theory is that thre is further contradictory evidence provided by Liem (1974). They
One psychological explanation of SZ was put forward by Bateson et al (1956) who looked at childhood as a base for developing SZ, for example the interactions children have with their mothers. His explanation, the Double Bind theory, states that schizophrenia can occur due to conflicting messages given from parents to their children, for example when a parent expresses care but does so in a critical way. This means that the child will become confused as the message they are given is conflicting, as one message effectively invalidates the other. As a result, the child is left with self doubt and eventual withdrawal. Experiences such as these are said to cause schizophrenia as they prevent the development of an internally coherent construction of reality, in the end they are likely to experience schizophrenic type symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations, and in some cases, paranoia. This theory therefore suggests that the home environment and the relationships a child has with their parents through messages plays a role in the development of schizophrenia. This is because there is no clear template of a loving relationship; instead the child is always unsure if they have done something wrong due to the conflicting messages they are given. A strength of this theory is the supporting evidence from Berger. He found that schizophrenic patients reported a higher recall of double bind statements (conflicting messages) by their mothers than non schizophrenic patients. However this reliability of this study was criticised as patients recall may be affected by their schizophrenia. There are said to be problems as it is called a retrospective recall, as the data is unreliable. For example, delusions may occur meaning that the patients are recalling things that didn’t happen. Another criticism of the Double Bind theory is that thre is further contradictory evidence provided by Liem (1974). They