Compare and contrast psychological and biological explanations of EITHER major depression OR schizophrenia

Introduction

This essay compares and contrasts psychological and biological explanations of schizophrenia. This will be done via a point by point comparison of both psychological and biological explanations of schizophrenia at the same time, while first pointing out similarities in their explanation of psychotic symptoms and thereafter any differences.

What is schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia refers to a mental disorder characterized by a breakdown in cognitive functioning and processes responsible for normal thought, emotions and ways of behaving. The result of this psychotic breakdown is faulty perception, hallucinations, inappropriate behaviour and delusions. Grand delusion is perhaps one of the more common or reported symptoms of schizophrenics with delusions of persecution or grandeur. According to Maher (2001), at least 75% of schizophrenics experience symptomatic delusions of some sort. 

Comparisons between psychological and biological explanations of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia can be explained by many theories including psychological and biological explanations each explaining specific aspects of the symptomatology. Psychological theories of schizophrenia look at cognitive, behavioural and psychodynamic factors to explain schizophrenic symptoms while biological theories look behind genetic and neurochemical factors. While they may be different ways of looking at the same problem, there are similarities between both theories.

Firstly, biological theories argue that there is a genetic component to schizophrenia which can be explained by genes. Given that human beings are shaped as much by genetics as by other factors. The hereditary component of schizophrenia was demonstrated by studies by McGuffin et al (1997) done on MZ and DZ twins to determine their concordance rates when it came to psychotic disorders including schizophrenia and major depression. The study showed that concordance rates for schizophrenia for MZ twins was 44.%, 12.08% for DZ twins and 2.84% for grandchildren illustrating the genetic likelihood of inheriting schizophrenia for persons that similar genetic makeup such as MZ twins (McGuffin and Katz 1989; McGuffin et al., 1997).

But a concordance rate of 44.3% is less than 50% which means half a chance of inheriting schizophrenia even for MZ twins that share 100% genetic material. This is because the other 50% is not genetic but rather down to other factors such as gene interaction with the environment, a key point genetic theory shares with psychological theories regarding the role of the environment in explaining schizophrenia. Psychological theory for instance states that one environmental factor that contributes to cognitive bias is social factors such as isolation and trauma, while biological theory also states that gene interaction with a traumatic environment can lead to gene expression that contributes to cognitive dysfunction characteristic to psychosis.

The second similarity between both biological and psychological theories is their attribution to the role of neurochemical imbalances in the brain and schizophrenia. They both attribute dopamine imbalances in the brain as behind some of the psychotic symptoms behind schizophrenia e.g. hallucinations, anxiety and depression. The only difference is that while biological theory asserts neurochemical imbalances are caused by natural abnormalities in dopamine activity, psychological theory attributes artificial hallucinogenic drugs as the cause of dopamine imbalance (Davis et al 1991).

Contrasts between psychological and biological explanations of schizophrenia

Nevertheless, while a comparison of psychological and biological explanations of schizophrenia does show similarities in their explanation, they do have a lot more contrasts and variances. The first contrast is that psychological theory places emphasis on cognitive processes that function in a biased way especially negatively....

References

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