Abnormal Psychology- Schizophrenia

insane Psychology Schizophrenia Introduction in that respect are a follow of problems with defining mental ab figureity. They hold problems with cultural relativity and social norms, what is normal within one culture or society may be con posturered abnormal within an new(prenominal). thither are excessively problems with statistics as just ab aside abnormalities puddle too few or too many statistics to equivalence and the statistics may not always be trusty. Under the medical present all psychological disorders are considered illnesses. There are two mixed bag systems to diagnose different disorders.These are the International Classification of Diseases & Health cogitate Problems (ICD) and Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The most up to experience editions currently in use are ICD-10 and DSM-IV although DSM-V is due to be released in May 2013. (Jabr, F (2013)) Schizophrenia According to the World Health disposal (WHO) schizophrenic psychos is is a severe diversity of mental illness. It is a discreetnessable psychological condition that affects 24 million commonwealth worldwide. It principal(prenominal)ly affects 15-35 year olds and is more(prenominal) likely to occur in males but anyone of any age or gender, can develop the condition.It affects thinking, perceptions and language and clears the longanimous to hear voices and to have hallucinations and delusions. Symptoms ICD-10 diagnostic criteria At least one of o Thought echo, thought institution/ secession/broadcast o Passivity, delusional perception o ordinal person auditory hallucination, running commentary o Persistent erratic delusions or two or more of o Persistent hallucinations o Thought disorder o Catatonic demeanor o veto symptoms o Significant behaviour change Duration o more than 1 month Exclusion criteria o Mood disorders, schizoaffective disorder loose outlook disease o Drug intoxication or withdrawal (Wing, J. K. & Agrawal, N. (200 9)) Behavioural Explanations and Therapies The behavioural glide path call forths that schizophrenia is precisely learned behaviour learned through operant conditioning. Sammons (2008) suggests that the reason schizophrenia tends to run in families is due to children learning the behaviour from their parents. Social learning theory as well as suggests that although there may be some symptoms present once a patient is around others with schizophrenia they learn symptoms by seeing others certify them.It is difficult to explain how the hallucinations and delusions suffered by a schizophrenic can be explained as learned behaviour true behaviourists think this is irrelevant as they are provided concerned with the physical behaviours not what is happening in the mind. capital of Minnesota and Lentz (1977) carried out a study into operant conditioning as a treatment for schizophrenia. They set up a token parsimony on a hospital ward where they rewarded patients for appropriate beha viour by giving them tokens that they could exchange for luxury items.It was fix that only 11% of the patients in the test group continued to require drugs for their symptoms compared to 100% of the control group. (AQA, (2010)) This demonstrates that operant conditioning as a treatment is very effective barely behaviourists do not care whether the patient is still hearing voices as long as they behave like they are not. In the Paul and Lentz study the patients may still hear voices but have simply learned that if they behave as though they are not they exit be rewarded. This means that the schizophrenia has not actually been cured. Biological Explanations and TherapiesThere have been a number of studies conducted that suggest there is a biological cause for schizophrenia. Through family resemblance studies it has been discovered that a normal person with no family history of schizophrenia has around a 0. 2-2% find out of growth the condition, whereas a person with one schizophr enic parent has a 13% chance of developing it. The chances increase to 46% if both parents have the condition. (Head, P (2012)) This discipline may not be reliable as it was based on randomness from records and memories and memories can easily be distorted or misinterpreted.The Copenhagen heights risk study looked at children aged 10-18 and classified them into low risk, of developing schizophrenia, and high risk groups. They removed the risk of environmental factors that could distort the vector sums by grouping the children by age, gender, residence and economic status. This made the study exceedingly reliable as it meant the only factor that should affect results was genetics. The study name that only 1. 9% of children in the low risk group true schizophrenia whereas 16. 2% of the high risk children did.This shows alimentation for the genetic news report for schizophrenia. Iverson (1979) carried out post-mortem studies. He found that there are high levels of dopamine in brains of schizophrenics. It is suggested that schizophrenia is caused by high levels of dopamine in the brain or more dopamine receptors in their brains. This is supported by the success of chlorpromazine drugs as a treatment for the condition. There are but problems with this explanation. One problem is that there is no exhibit that excess dopamine causes schizophrenia.It could be that schizophrenia causes excess dopamine. (AQA, 2010) Biological treatments for schizophrenia are anti psychotic drugs and chlorpromazine which blocks dopamine receptors in the brain. These drugs have been proven to institute as they reduce the number of patients spending a long age in hospital however drugs are not a cure. They only control the symptoms if a patient stops pickings these drugs the symptoms will curtly return. This is known as the revolving door syndrome. There can be a number of reasons for this to happen firstly a patient may ave a fear of getting well. The patient may find it d ifficult to cogitate life without schizophrenia or enjoy some divulge of it. another(prenominal) reason is that the patient may stop taking the drugs they are confirming due to side effects. (Fritscher, L (2012)) The side effects of these drugs can include drowsiness, dizziness, disturbed vision, weight gain, blood clots and tremors. (Net doctor (2012)) Patients may feel that the side effects are worse than the original illness and stop taking the prescribed medication which then starts the cycle again. Psychodynamic Explanations and TherapiesThe psychodynamic explanation for schizophrenia is that the self-importance-importance is being over resumen by either the Id or Super self-importance. Freudians would suggest that there has been a problem in childhood, most likely a problem with the mother, the ego doesnt develop as well as it should which means the id can easily take control. (Sammons (2008)) The Ego looses control and the patient will enter a child like state, known as primary narcissism, which causes fantasy to be confused with reality and delusions of self importance which cause the patient to be highly demanding similar to a baby.Hallucinations and delusions are caused by the Ego trying to regain control and reality. There are problems with the psychodynamic glide path firstly there is no scientific evidence to support the explanations. Secondly it has generally been regarded that since anti psychotic drugs work to treat the symptoms that the biological explanation is more reliable. (Sammons (2008)) Freud did not see any arrest in treating schizophrenics as he believed that it had been caused by the broken ego which is the part of the psyche that he would engage with, as this was so badly alter he believed there was no way to cure schizophrenia.More recently the main psychodynamic treatment for schizophrenia has been psychotherapy. Rosen (1946) brought patients into a child like state to be able to then nurture them to redevelop a strong eg o and ultimately rebalance the psyche. There have been problems with this form of treatment as it is out of date and the results that were found by Rosen are less likely to be effective today as the definition of schizophrenia has changed and the cases Rosen treated would not be considered to be schizophrenic today. Also Drake & Sederer (1986) actually found that his form of therapy could worsen symptoms and prolong the patients stay in hospital. Cognitive Explanations and Therapies The cognitive approach agrees with the biological evidence that there is a high genetic office to schizophrenia but realises that there must also be other causes and it is important to take these into account. The cognitive model suggests that although genes can create a disposition to develop schizophrenia it only actually develops as a response to stresses such as trauma or infections.Cognitive psychologists fail to take environmental factors such as family and lifestyle into account. Cognitive psycho logists believe that the unseasonable thought patterns are what cause schizophrenia and not a result of the condition. It is suggested that there is a fault with the way in which schizophrenics process information and that it is difficult for them to filter out irrelevant information. Hemsley (1993) suggested that schizophrenics have problems processing information in their memories and new information coming in. It is also suggested that there is a problem with the functioning of the in built schemas.Hemsley explains that the reason schizophrenics hear voices is because they do not realise that their thoughts come from memories and therefore believe them to be voices. There is however very little evidence to support Hemsleys ideas get out for some research on animals which cannot be directly compared with human behaviour. Frith (1992) suggested that people with schizophrenia find it difficult to distinguish whether the information is coming from an natural or external source. He believed that most of the symptoms of schizophrenia can be explained by problems in three different cognitive processes.The first is the unfitness to generate willed action. The second is the inability to proctor willed action, and the third is the inability to monitor the beliefs and intentions of others. Frith suggests that these problems come from faulty wiring in the brain. There is evidence to support this from his study where he gave specific tasks to schizophrenics and monitored the cerebral blood flow. He found that this was different to what he would expect to see in a person without schizophrenia. The cognitive explanation of schizophrenia is very popular in term of helping ordinary eople understand the condition. It is also made more reliable by the fact that they take into account other factors such as genetics as well as psychological factors. The cognitive approach also has limitations as although it does well to explain the symptoms of schizophrenia it cannot explai n the causes only when without looking at the biological model. PAGE 13-14 Conclusions In conclusion there are a wide range of explanations for schizophrenia including genetics, environment and traumatic experiences. There are also a wide range of treatments including drugs, psycho therapy and behavioural therapy.All of these explanations and therapies have credit on their own but also have limitations. The best way to treat schizophrenia is through a combination of treatments such as drugs used with cognitive-behavioural therapy. Most people with schizophrenia are managed through treatments however many people will relapse. This would then trigger a new round of treatments. Continued support compensate after recovery helps to reduce the chances of relapse. (NHS choices (2012)) References o AQA, (2010) schizophrenia Explanations and treatments online purchasable from www. aqabpsychology. co. k/2010/07/schizophrenia-explanations-and-treatments accessed 5. 2. 2013 o Fritscher, L (2 012) Revolving Door Syndrome online available from http//phobias. about. com/od/glossary/g/Revolving-Door-Syndrome. htm accessed 11. 2. 2013 o Head, P (2012) Biological Explanations of Schizophrenia online available from http//www. springwood. norfolk. sch. uk/Downloads/Psychology/biological%20EXPLANATIONS%20OF%20SCHIZOPHRENIA. pdf Accessed 6. 2. 2013 o Jabr, F (2013) The Newest Edition of Psychiatrys Bible, the DSM-5, Is Complete Online available from http//www. scientificamerican. om/article. cfm? id=dsm-5-update Accessed on 11. 2. 2013 o Net Doctor (2012) Chlorpromazine Side effectuate online available from http//www. netdoctor. co. uk/brain-and-nervous-system/medicines/chlorpromazine. html. Accessed 11. 2. 2013 o NHS Choices (2012) Schizophrenia Living with online available from http//www. nhs. uk/Conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/living-with. aspx accessed 6. 2. 2013 o Sammons (2008) Schizophrenia online available from http//www. psychlotron. org. uk/resources/abnormal/A2_AQB_a bnormal_schizophreniaPsyBehActivity. pdf accessed 5. 2. 2013 Wing, J. K & Agrawal, N. (2009) Concepts of Schizophrenia online Available from (http//www. health. am/psy/more/icd-10-and-dsm-iv-concepts-of-schizophrenia/ accessed 2. 2. 2013 Bibliography o Mcleod, S. (2008) Abnormal Psychology online available from www. simplypsychology. org/abnormal-psychology. html accessed 5. 2. 2013 o WHO (2012) Mental Health Schizophrenia online available from www. who. int/mental_health/management/schizophrenia/en/ accessed 5. 2. 2013 http//alevelpsychologynotes. blogspot. co. uk/2007/10/schizophrenia. html by TAZMANIAN_DEVIL a 2007