Individual Differences
Psychodynamic Explanations
- Freud did not work with schizophrenics himself, believing that they lacked the insight for
psychoanalysis.
- The term used by Freud and his peers was ‘dementia praecox’ rather than schizophrenia.
- His theory of Schizophrenia was based virtually wholly on the memoirs of Daniel Schreber, a
Judge who had various delusions, such as believing that God had penetrated him and was turning
him into a woman.
- Freud was interested in Schreber because he was able to continue working despite suffering from
frequent psychosis.
Fixation
- Fixation refers to the notion that a portion of the libido is permanently invested in a particular
stage of his development
- When someone is fixated at a particular stage in psychosexual development, they may regress to
that stage as an adult if they become stressed upset.
- During the oral stage, infant’s libidos are satisfied by feeding, particularly from their mother. If
they are fed too much or too little, they could become fixated at this stage.
- This fixation may manifest in later behaviours such as nail biting, chewing gum or smoking.
- Freud proposed that individuals with schizophrenia become fixated in the earliest stages of
development.
- If an individual with this fixation encounters massive amounts of stress they will regress to the
oral stage and essentially behave like new-borns again.
Regression
- Schizophrenia emerged due to conflict between different parts of the personality, the ego
overwhelmed by the id or superego leading it to regress
- This regression involves the loss of all attachments other than those focused on the self,
mimicking the selfish behaviour we recognize in infancy, with the schizophrenic becoming
disengaged from the outside world.
- This detachment combined with an active mind leads to the creation of alternate realities in
which the ego is non-existent, and the id’s fantasies run wild.
- This can lead to the self-obsessed ideas of schizophrenia such as delusions of grandeur and
persecution.
Detached from Reality
- In an attempt to recover some normality, elements of the real world are fabricated in the mind of
the schizophrenics, in the form of audio or visual hallucinations perhaps.
- The schizophrenic has a need to communicate with someone external, but they have a distrust of
all that they know and that is real.
- ‘As in the phantom limb syndrome…the brain creates persons and relationships in mind to fill
the blankness created by the brain’s diminished capacity to gather and process daily social
experiences and relationships.’ – McGlashan (2009)
- Freud proposed that schizophrenics are strongly controlled by sexual impulses, suggesting why it
emerges in adolescence and the early 20s.
Schizophrenogenic Mother
- Frieda Fromm-Reichman was a Neo-Freudian who developed ideas about schizophrenia which
essentially blamed the mothers of the individuals.
- During the late 1940s and 1950s, several studies (Lidz and Lidz, 1949) suggested problematic
mother-child relationships played a part in schizophrenia.
- Fromm-Reichman proposed that the trigger for schizophrenia was mother who were both
overprotective and cold, distant and over dominant.
- This overprotection stifles development while the distance leaves the child feeling emotionally
insecure.
- ‘the schizophrenic is painfully distrustful and resentful of other people, due to the severe early
warp and rejection he encountered in important people of his infancy and childhood, as a rule,
mainly in a schizophrenogenic mother’
Psychodynamic Explanations
- Freud did not work with schizophrenics himself, believing that they lacked the insight for
psychoanalysis.
- The term used by Freud and his peers was ‘dementia praecox’ rather than schizophrenia.
- His theory of Schizophrenia was based virtually wholly on the memoirs of Daniel Schreber, a
Judge who had various delusions, such as believing that God had penetrated him and was turning
him into a woman.
- Freud was interested in Schreber because he was able to continue working despite suffering from
frequent psychosis.
Fixation
- Fixation refers to the notion that a portion of the libido is permanently invested in a particular
stage of his development
- When someone is fixated at a particular stage in psychosexual development, they may regress to
that stage as an adult if they become stressed upset.
- During the oral stage, infant’s libidos are satisfied by feeding, particularly from their mother. If
they are fed too much or too little, they could become fixated at this stage.
- This fixation may manifest in later behaviours such as nail biting, chewing gum or smoking.
- Freud proposed that individuals with schizophrenia become fixated in the earliest stages of
development.
- If an individual with this fixation encounters massive amounts of stress they will regress to the
oral stage and essentially behave like new-borns again.
Regression
- Schizophrenia emerged due to conflict between different parts of the personality, the ego
overwhelmed by the id or superego leading it to regress
- This regression involves the loss of all attachments other than those focused on the self,
mimicking the selfish behaviour we recognize in infancy, with the schizophrenic becoming
disengaged from the outside world.
- This detachment combined with an active mind leads to the creation of alternate realities in
which the ego is non-existent, and the id’s fantasies run wild.
- This can lead to the self-obsessed ideas of schizophrenia such as delusions of grandeur and
persecution.
Detached from Reality
- In an attempt to recover some normality, elements of the real world are fabricated in the mind of
the schizophrenics, in the form of audio or visual hallucinations perhaps.
- The schizophrenic has a need to communicate with someone external, but they have a distrust of
all that they know and that is real.
- ‘As in the phantom limb syndrome…the brain creates persons and relationships in mind to fill
the blankness created by the brain’s diminished capacity to gather and process daily social
experiences and relationships.’ – McGlashan (2009)
- Freud proposed that schizophrenics are strongly controlled by sexual impulses, suggesting why it
emerges in adolescence and the early 20s.
Schizophrenogenic Mother
- Frieda Fromm-Reichman was a Neo-Freudian who developed ideas about schizophrenia which
essentially blamed the mothers of the individuals.
- During the late 1940s and 1950s, several studies (Lidz and Lidz, 1949) suggested problematic
mother-child relationships played a part in schizophrenia.
- Fromm-Reichman proposed that the trigger for schizophrenia was mother who were both
overprotective and cold, distant and over dominant.
- This overprotection stifles development while the distance leaves the child feeling emotionally
insecure.
- ‘the schizophrenic is painfully distrustful and resentful of other people, due to the severe early
warp and rejection he encountered in important people of his infancy and childhood, as a rule,
mainly in a schizophrenogenic mother’
