However, most first degree relatives and twins share the same or similar environments so it is difficult to separate genetic and environmental influences. Because of the difficulties of disentangling genetic and environmental influences for individuals who share genes and environment, studies of genetically related individuals who have been reared apart are used. Tienari et al conducted a longitudinal study and found that out of 164 adoptees whose biological mothers had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, 11 (6.7%) also received a diagnosis of schizophrenia, compared to just four (2%) of the 197 control adoptees (born to non- schizophrenic mothers). This suggests that genes rather than the environment have caused the disorder in these cases. It supports the
Berger found that schizophrenics reported a higher recall of double-bind statements by their mothers than non-schizophrenics. However this evidence might not be reliable, as patients recall may be affected by their schizophrenic. Other studies are less supportive. Liem measured patterns of parental communications in families of schizophrenic children and found no difference when compared with normal children. Expressed emotion (EE) involves high levels of negative emotion (e.g.
This supports Bowlby's theory of sensitive period. There was another study conducted by Stout, Stout conducted a study of Romanian orphans who had experienced severe conditions and found that they later suffered permanent psychological damage, including no ability to interact with people and increased aggression. Psychologists successfully showed the impacts of institutionalisation; a strength of Hodges and Tizards study was that it was longitudinal so the researchers were able to see how the institution affected the children over many years. However a weakness of this longitudinal method involves attrition, where many of the children may have left the study because they were well adjusted, therefore resulting in a biased remaining sample - children with pleasant behaviour are more likely to be adopted. Some research suggests that individuals who do not form a primary attachment within the early sensitive period are unable to recover, however, in the study of romanian orphans, one third recovered well therefore privation alone cannot explain negative outcomes.
E.g. depression has been associated with decreased availability of serotonin. Genetics are another aspect to the physical features of the biological approach. Many psychological disorders occur more frequently in identical (monozygotic) twins than they do in non-identical (dizygotic) twins, and other disorders
Biological perspective is relating anxiety to family and genetic history. Many illnesses including mental illness can be genetic. An approach for this would be anti-depressants as well anxiety medication. The perspective I agree with is the biological and psychodynamic perspective. I agree with the psychodynamic perspective because I have anxiety attacks from situations that have happened to me as a child.
It was found that having an identical twin with schizophrenia gave you a 48% chance of developing the condition. This reduced to 17% in non-identical twins. They concluded that schizophrenia has a strong genetic basis, however, if it was entirely down to genetics, we would expect this figure to be 100% for identical twins. The meta analysis was carried out on field experiments, so has high ecological validity. The fact that both twins wouldn’t always develop schizophrenia means that another factor must be involved, for example family environment.
These treatments are some the options that may be available. The majority of people with this illness will find dialectical behavioral therapy to be the most useful form of psychotherapy (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2014). Borderline personality disorder medications have been shown to reduce some of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD). While there are currently no medications approved by the FDA to treat BPD, research has shown that some medications do reduce certain symptoms. Also, medications may be used to treat psychological conditions that frequently co-occur with BPD (e.g., major depressive disorder).
It only contributes pieces to the whole psychological puzzle. Some children act very differently from their supposed birth order characteristics and can have traits from other birth orders (The New Birth…34). Therefore, birth order speculations are not 100%, but the “law of averages” usually proves it (11). Birth order affects many different aspects in a person’s life. Not only can it influence the individual’s personality, but also who they will marry, what type of occupation they choose, what kind of parent they will be, and which child in their family
Essay Plan Biological Explanations of Schizophrenia 1. Describe in some detail the genetic factors- family studies- Gottesman found that schizophrenia is more common among biological relatives of a person with schizophrenia and also that the closer the degree of genetic relatedness, the greater the risk. For instance, children with 2 schizophrenic parents have a concordance rate of 46%, children of one schizophrenic parent 13% and siblings 9%. Although this could be due to common rearing patterns or other factors not relating to heredity. Twin studies- Joseph calculated concordance rates of 40.4% for MZ twins and 7.4% for DZ twins.
Although it isn't clear in the paragraph whether Harry has a twin or not, if he did this could have a massive influence on his behaviour. Let's say Harry had an mono-zygotic twin, who shared a 100% concordance rate with him. Early twin studies generally found higher concordance for criminality amongst MZ than DZ twins, which would support the suggestion of a genetic influence. However, this research has said to be flawed due to a combination of small samples and poor methods of determining whether a particular twin pair was MZ or DZ. The rationale underlying the use of twins in explaining criminal behaviour is that if 1 MZ twin shows signs of aggressive behaviour, and the other one does too, then it is down to genetic influence.