PSYCHODYNAMIC BASIS of Paranoid Schizophrenia

Psychodynamic Theories



There are multiple factors that lead to the development of paranoid schizophrenia. There is no single theory that can explain the said disorder.



Psychodynamic theories states that schizophrenia may be linked to the patients reaction to life stressors or conflicts it focuses on the individual responses to life events. It is based on the premise that human behavior and relationships are shaped by conscious and unconscious influences.



One of the key concepts of psychodynamic theory of Sigmund Freud is the importance of early childhood experience. Our client is deprived of significant parental relationships in her critical early years.



Erik Erikson believed that childhood is very important in personality development. Personality development is considered successful if the individual has more of the good traits than the bed traits. Erikson also believed that man depends on his social environment. Yet a person can be enviably successful in terms of worldly pursuits and never the less unhappy. Our client motivation in fulfilling his goal was more of pleasing his parents than himself. The unhappy person can move from job to job which was also manifested by our client and still he felt that he has to keep changing his social reality until he finds the right environment, i.e., himself.



Another theory from Dr. Murray Bowen, The Family System Theory, stated that the emotional interdependence presumably evolves to promote the cohesiveness and cooperation families require to protect, shelter and feed their members. Heightened tension however can intensify this processes that promote unity and team work and this can lead to problems. When family members get anxious, the anxiety can escalate by spreading infectiously among them. As anxiety goes up, the emotional connectedness of family members becomes more stressful than comforting. Eventually one or more members feel over whelmed, isolated or out of control. Our client grew up witnessing his parent’s daily verbal quarrels.



A parent takes too much responsibility for distress of others in relation to their unrealistic expectations of him. The one accommodating the most literally ‘absorbs’ anxiety and thus in the family members and most vulnerable to problems such as depression, alcoholism, affairs or physical illness.



DEVELOPMENTAL THEORIES



Many theorists believed that the seed of mental condition of individual, whether mental health or illness are planted in childhood, and that successful passage to all stages of development will result to ideal and optimum functioning of individual.



Freud focused on unconscious process. He conceptualized poor ego boundaries, fragile ego, inadequate ego development, superego dominance arrested psychosocial development.



Erikson theorized eight stage Model of Human Development with ‘trust vs. mistrust’, the first crucial stage to interpersonal skills development. An unloved, deprived child is vulnerable to mental illness. Unsatisfactory passage through this stage lead to mistrust, fear, hopelessness, externalization of conflicts and other social behavior.



Sullivan, using different terms, expressed essentially the same ideas. The absence of nurturing during early years blocks affective responsiveness in later years. He also theorized the Three Mode of Thinking by which humans perceived and evaluate their experiences. The two primitive modes of thinking (prototaxic and parataxic) influence the individuals reasoning process with the previous to be commonly manifested clients with schipzoprenia.



Donald Winnicot, postulated the Good Enough Mother as responsive to the infant’s gesture, allowing the infant the temporary illusion of omnipotence, the realization of hallucination, and protection from the unthinkable anxiety that threatens the immature ego in the stage of absolute dependence of development. The failure of the other to satisfy the infant’s need induces the infant to compensate for temporary deprivation by mental activity and by understanding. Thus, the infant learns to tolerate for increasingly longer periods both his ego needs and instinctual tensions.