Does schizophrenia run in families?
Causes of schizophrenia
Evidence suggests that genetic vulnerability with environmental factors can act in combination resulting in the development of schizophrenia.[8] Although schizophrenia is very strongly heritable, there is also some evidence that all cases are not caused by heredity. Many people who appear to carry "schizophrenia genes" may not become schizophrenic.[9] Recent research suggests that genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia is multifactorial, caused by interactions of several genes.[10]
David Reiss (psychologist)
The term "Family Paradigm" is used by the author to define a set of shared beliefs and views that every family has, even though they are mainly present at a subliminal level. His research started off as a way to investigate whether some aspects of family life had influences over the development of schizophrenia in the offspring of the family. Thus, three different types of families were subjected to numerous experiments: families without any psychopathological diagnosis, families with offspring (aging 12 to 30) that had characterial disorders, and families with offspring that had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. The preliminary studies showed that families, when given tasks that dealt with gathering, interpreting and communicating information, differed one another in very specific ways, that could be interpreted as an extension, to the family as a whole, of George Kelly's concept of personal construct, thus becoming shared constructs. Reiss states that shared construing always happens, and follows very specific interaction patterns, that the family has carefully but subconsciously created throughout its life. The types of constructs the family forms are directly derived from the interaction of three polar variables:
By crossing these variables we could possibly obtain eight different types of families, but the authors investigate only four possible configurations, thus dividing families on the basis of their shared construing of the laboratory experience: