View of Schizophrenia

The sociocultural view assumes that schizophrenia is caused by social labeling and family dysfunction. Even though social and family forces are considered role players in schizophrenia, research hasn't clarified what their relationships might be. Many sociocultural theorists believe that the features of schizophrenia are influenced by the diagnosis. Society labels people who fail to conform to certain norms of behavior. Social labeling is believed to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that once given the person's behavior conforms to (Comer, 2010).

One of the dangers of social labeling was demonstrated in the Rosenhan study. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that psychiatrists cannot reliably tell the difference between people who are sane and those who are insane. With the results showing that psychiatric labels tend to stick in a way that medical labels do not and that everything a patient does is interpreted in accordance with the diagnostic label once it has been applied.

Family dysfunction is believed to cause and worsen schizophrenia. Through the over-expression of emotion, which is negative, and the invasion of privacy; however, this is difficult to prove as such, since the schizophrenia could be the cause of the disruption of family life. Society and family are driving dynamics in the development of schizophrenia more research needs to be done to identify the exact causal relationships. One of the best-known family theories of schizophrenia is the double-bind hypothesis. Some parents repeatedly communicate pairs of mutually contradictory messages that place the child in so-called double-bind situations; the child cannot avoid displeasing the parents because nothing the child does is right (Comer, 2010).

In the double -blind study the individual is involved in an intense relationship; that is, a relationship in which he feels it is vitally important that he discriminate accurately what sort of message is being communicated so that he may respond appropriately. The individual is caught in a situation in which the other person in the relationship is expressing two orders of message and each of these denies the other. And, the individual is unable to comment on the messages being expressed to correct his discrimination of what order of message to respond to, i.e. he cannot make a meta-communicative statement (Blotcky, 1982). The double-blind study is closely related to the psychodynamic notion of a schizophrenogenic mother. Although popular in the clinical field, it is unsupported by research.