Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T08:26:09.564Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Patient-Environment Relationships in Schizophrenia

Information Processing, Communication Deviance, Autonomic Arousal, and Stressful Life Events

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2018

Keith H. Nuechterlein
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry
Michael J. Goldstein
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology
Joseph Ventura
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of California Los Angeles
Michael E. Dawson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California
Jeri A. Doane
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University

Extract

The general view that relationships between factors within the patient and those in the environment are important in understanding schizophrenia has been widely accepted and is the basis for vulnerability/stress models of this disorder. However, the specifics of the patient-environment relationships that may be critical for schizophrenia continue to be largely a mystery. At the UCLA Clinical Research Center for the Study of Schizophrenia, we have developed a tentative working model of schizophrenic episodes that emphasises the mediating role of information-processing and autonomic abnormalities in the patient in interaction with stressful circumstances and protective factors in the patient's environment (Nuechterlein & Dawson, 1984a; Liberman, 1986; Dawson & Nuechterlein, 1987; Nuechterlein, 1987). Here we examine two examples of patient-environment relationships that may increase our understanding of such processes in schizophrenia.

Type
IV. From the Perspective of Person-Environment Relationships
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asarnow, R. F. & Maccrimmon, D. J. (1981) Span of apprehension deficits during the post-psychotic stages of schizophrenia: A replication and extension. Archives of General Psychiatry, 38, 10061011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asarnow, R. F., Steffy, R. A., Maccrimmon, D. J., et al (1977) An attentional assessment of foster children at risk for schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 86, 267275.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, G. W. & Birley, J. L. T. (1968) Crises and life changes and the onset of schizophrenia. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 9, 203214.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. & Harris, T. (1978) Social Origins of Depression. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Dawson, M. E. & Nuechterlein, K. H. (1987) The role of autonomic dysfunctions within a vulnerability/stress model of schizophrenic disorders. In Psychopathology: An Interactional Perspective (eds Magnusson, D. & Öhman, A.). Orlando, Florida: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Dohrenwend, B. S., Krasnoff, L., Askenasy, A. R., et al (1978) Exemplification of a method for scaling life events: The PERI life events scale. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 19, 205229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frith, C. D., Stevens, M., Johnstone, E. C., et al (1979) Skin conductance responsivity during acute episodes of schizophrenia as a predictor of symptomatic improvement. Psychological Medicine, 9, 101106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gottesman, I. I. & Shields, J. (1982) Schizophenia: The Epigenetic Puzzle. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, J. (1977) Patterns of transactional style deviance in the TAT's of parents of schizophrenics. Family Process, 16, 327337.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leff, J. & Vaughn, C. (1985) Expressed Emotion in Families. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Liberman, R. P. (1986) Coping and competence as protective factors in the vulnerability-stress model of schizophrenia. In Treatment of Schizophrenia: Family Assessment and Intervention (eds Goldstein, M. J., Hand, I. & Hahlweg, K.). Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Nuechterlein, K. H. (1983) Signal detection in vigilance tasks and behavioral attributes among offspring of schizophrenic mothers and among hyperactive children. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 92, 428.Google Scholar
Nuechterlein, K. H. (1987) Vulnerability models for schizophrenia: State of the art. In Search for the Causes of Schizophrenia (eds Häfner, H., Gattaz, W. F. & Janzarik, W.). Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Nuechterlein, K. H. & Dawson, M. E. (1984a) A heuristic vulnerability/stress model of schizophrenic episodes. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 10, 300312.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nuechterlein, K. H. & Dawson, M. E. (1984b) Information processing and attentional functioning in the developmental course of schizophrenic disorders. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 10, 160203.Google Scholar
Nuechterlein, K. H., Edell, W. S., Norris, M., et al (1986a) Attentional vulnerability indicators, thought disorder, and negative symptoms. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 12, 408426.Google Scholar
Nuechterlein, K. H., Snyder, K. S., Dawson, M. E., et al (1986b) Expressed emotion, fixed-dose fluphenazine decanoate maintenance, and relapse in recent-onset schizophrenia. Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 22, 633639.Google Scholar
Rutschmann, J., Cornblatt, B. & Erlenmeyer-Kimling, L. (1977) Sustained attention in children at risk for schizophrenia: Report on a continuous performance test. Archives of General Psychiatry, 34, 571575.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rutschmann, J., Cornblatt, B. & Erlenmeyer-Kimling, L. (1986) Sustained attention in children at risk for schizophenia: Findings with two visual continuous performance tests in a new sample. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 14, 365385.Google Scholar
Singer, M. & Wynne, L. (1965) Thought disorder and family relations of schizophrenics: III. Methodology using projective techniques. Archives of General Psychiatry, 12, 187200.Google Scholar
Strauss, M. E., Prescott, C. A., Gutterman, D. F. & Tune, L. E. (1987) Span of apprehension deficits in schizophrenia and mania. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 13, 699704.Google Scholar
Sturgeon, D., Turpin, G., Kuipers, L., Berkowitz, R. & Leff, J. (1984) Psychophysiological responses of schizophrenic patients to high and low expressed emotion relatives: A follow-up study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 145, 6269.Google Scholar
Tarrier, N., Vaughn, C., Lader, M. H. & Leff, J. P. (1979) Bodily reactions to people and events in schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 36, 311315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ventura, J., Dawson, M. E. & Nuechterlein, K. H. (1986 a, August) Life events and electrodermal arousal in schizophrenia. Presented at the 94th Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Ventura, J., Nuechterlein, K. H., Lukoff, D., et al (1986 b, May) Stressful life events and schizophrenic relapse. Presented at the 139th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Wagener, D. K., Hogarty, G. E., Goldstein, M. J., Asarnow, R. F. & Browne, A. (1986) Information processing and communication deviance in schizophrenic patients and their mothers. Psychiatry Research, 18, 365377.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wynne, L. C. & Singer, M. T. (1963) Thought disorder and family relations of schizophrenics. II: A classification of forms of thinking. Archives of General Psychiatry, 9, 199206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahn, T. P., Carpenter, W. T. & McGlashan, T. H. (1981) Autonomic nervous system activity in acute schizophrenia: II. Relationships to short term prognosis and clinical state. Archives of General Psychiatry, 38, 260266.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.