What is the Schizophrenogenic Mother?
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- čas přidán 21. 03. 2018
- This video describes the concept of the schizophrenogenic mother. This is a theory that was based on research that occurred in the 1930s and continued all the way through the 1970s. The word schizophrenogenic means something that causes schizophrenia. The term mother refers to the mother of an individual with schizophrenia. In this original theory, it was thought that an overprotective and rejecting mother could cause schizophrenia. The early research on this theory was in the 1930s. There was a study with 45 participants who had schizophrenia. Two of the participants had mothers that were classified as rejecting and 33 were classified as overprotective. Early on we can see there are some methodological problems with the research. There was an association drawn that really wasn't there in the first place, but this led to further studies in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. A number of these studies tended to support this theory and the idea of the schizophrenic mother was expanded. this maternal style involves someone who is dominating, cold, distant, overprotecting, rejecting, poor with maintaining boundaries, intrusive, hostile, aggressive, and demanding. The definition was expanded and the idea of the schizophrenogenic family was created. A lot of this research from the 30s all the way through the 70s used case studies and small sample sizes. Also, there were studies that did not have control groups, which means they weren't studying the maternal styles of individuals who did not have schizophrenia, rather they were only looking at the maternal styles of individuals who did have schizophrenia. These studies led to a real commitment to this belief and the theory was popular for a long time. In the 70s and 80s we saw studies come out that started to question the schizophrenogenic mother theory and suggested that there really wasn't hardly any association between that maternal style and the developing of schizophrenia. For a long time, the theory of the schizophrenogenic mother was based on the idea that this maternal style was overrepresented with people who had schizophrenia and it turns out it really wasn't.
There are a lot of lessons to learn from the theory of the schizophrenogenic mother. This theory was popular for around 40 years even though there was little evidence to support it. This speaks to the importance of good research methodology and careful interpretation of research results. We have to be careful when converting association or correlation over to causality. Those constructs aren't the same, however, this seems to be a common mistake in a number of fields including mental health treatment and psychopathology.
My grandmother and my uncle. I grew up being her"angel born to save this family." I didn't realize until the last few years of her life how deeply disturbed and disturbing she was. Thank you for the information.
You are quite welcome!
You don't need research to understand that parents and immediate family are the primary sources of children's coping mechanisms in their lives (including adult lives). Maybe it's not the final straw that causes schizophrenia, but if the child was neglected and gaslighted their whole life, they will not be able to cope with stressful events and toxic people well, as adults. When you say there's no connection, you do not give any further information explaining it. In my own experience, as someone who has been raised by a narcissistic mother, I can totally see the connection between that and my psychotic experiences. If someone is gaslighting you your whole life, and you are not aware of it, you will doubt your own reality constantly, and possibly lose it completely. People with schizophrenia that I know have very similar mothers to mine, coincidently... (?)
I am glad that you also made reference to poor parenting styles also having a negative impact on mental health. Excellent information!
I’ve been doing some reading and the schozophregenic mother has fallen out of favor simply because it’s rude to criticize someone’s parenting skills. Screw that. A doctor has a patient with type 2 diabetes and tells the patient they need to eat better and change their diet. The patient is offended and how dare you criticize my choice of diet, I’ll eat what I want! That’s a ridiculous scenario. Respect the expert. If you want a good healthy outcome, respect the expert.
Don’t let the truth offend you; let it change you.
i just want an explanation why my mother who had a schizophrenic brother has been so abusive to our family forever and has never emotionally matured. i need an answer because obviously having an incompetant, deluded and aggressive parent has given me HUGE mental health problems - and i'm waiting for all these "save the children" white knights to tell me what they are doing to find such abusive parents and stop them abusing kids.. because right now i'm carrying the burden alone .
psychiatrists dont feel a moral responsibility to check on parental mental health or behaviour, and have taken a back seat depending on the political and industrial motive to get involved (cheers).
the law babies parents like they are more vulnerable than kids.. if a mentally unwell person murders someone , they still face consequences, so honestly i'm appalled at society's lack of interest minimising the risks TO CHILDREN when parents have long term mental health problems..
the instant "mental illness doesn't mean abusive" retort seems to come out of the fact that society is kept ignorant about what psychiatry actually aims to accomplish and completely drowns out real damaging behaviour that many children are dealing with all alone.
so unless you have a plan to help those kids .. defending people with mental health problems generally just piles guilt on people who were failed by society - and doesn't tell us how to stop abuse. just he brushing the worst problems (however few) under the carpet.
i dont understand how there is more safeguarding against things like female genital mutilation which is really not common - than parents with behavioural problems.
great video! thanks! Anecdotal: this describes perfectly my psychotic mother, yet I have NO schizophrenic traits.
very interesting. my mama has bipolar schizophrenia and out of 3 kids that my grandma had I'm aware my grandma was the hardest on my mama. she was the black sheep and got minimal amounts of love displayed to her. very opposite how she raised me so I'm grateful I'm so understanding as I am now.
Watched this cause my ex psychotherapist said about my parents " schizofrenogenic communication". Thank you for your videos Dr Grande.
Todd as someone who's experienced this first hand and has witnessed this with other Male sufferers I can absolutely attest to the validity of the schizophregenic mother. The reason it was abandoned in the 70s as you well know is that people with agendas started warping and discarding evidence as they continue to do to this day. You yourself must know from your own practitional experience that it is true. I realize the immense social and career pressures involved but at some point there has to be a regard for the truth and the welfare of patients from the psychiatric profession.
Is the double bind theory also debunked, because both theories were at play in my family. It just makes nothing but good common sense that giving contradicting injunctions or feedback coming out of one screaming mouth all one's life would tear a healthy brain into.
Yeah, no.
It is a popular myth that Freud's models were studied and refuted.
The truth is the people credited with "refuting" Freud never even looked at his model.
The main Freudian force -> is Narcissism.
See Freud, "On Narcissism" 1909.
That is Freud's model .
If you were testing Freud's model, you'd look for Narcissistic parents.
Did they?
No.
They looked for "schizophregenic mothers".
That's not Freud's model.
That's a strawman, caricature of Freud.
Freud's model places Narcissism at the center of everything.
And Narcissism is often "covert" - hidden.
If and when they ever do test Freud's model empirically, they'll need to understand that what they are looking for is "hidden" - subjects will either be hiding it, or unaware of it.
But the point is - they never went anywhere near Freud's model.
They set up a strawman so they could say they debunked Freud.
LOL.
Probably because they are narcissists.
Let's be honest.
You're not going to refute Freud.
He was next-level intelligent and probably correct about 90% of his speculations.
Look at "hysteria". If you'd believe modern psychologists, it doesn't exist.
But we all know that "mass hysteria" does, in fact, exist, and there are many historical examples.
I'm siding with Freud.
Kinda with you on this my dude. The more I look at Freud the more I think he was definitely on to something. What I learned in my meager psych classes is that there wasn't a good way to conduct experiments on his theories...doesn't mean his theories aren't correct. We all know there's some type of a "subconscious/unconscious" but it's hard to "prove" that.
I like your videos. I seem to have at least 50% of the disorders you talk about! (haha)
Have you done any videos about Maladaptive Daydreaming?
Thank you! I just recorded a video on Maladaptive Daydreaming today, so it should be released in about 2 weeks or so.
Well my Grandma Had Paranoid Schizophrenia 😐😞 honestly most of my family members have similar mental illness’s as well 😞
This mothering style was also held responsible for autism. In hindsight, some of these traits correlate with parents on the autism spectrum. It would be interesting to see a retroactive study of parent/child hospitalization or treatment.
Very interesting! Its still a problem here in france, its used to explain and 'treat' autism by numerous lacanian psychologists/iatrists (maybe youre already aware of this problem)
Recently in my Family Counseling class, we learned about this theory. I think that those characteristics of a mother or family can have a negative effect on children because they are not meeting their basic needs. It's surprising to see how much of an impact parental styles can have on children, even if it may not be a direct cause of schizophrenia.
This concept is relatively new to me, this was a good video to look at in regards to learning new material/ concepts and theories.
Same for me! I enjoy learning about new and different concepts.
Is it possible for mother in late 68's to develop schizophrenia?
Great content! Thank you!
You're welcome!
Misinterpretations such as this do underscore the need for careful explanation of research, and methodology, of course (2 v 33). While I only vaguely recalled the term "schizophrenogenic mother," I did associate the controlling, rejecting mother type with the disorder. Unfortunately, once information is dispersed, it is much more difficult to correct. Although, the fact that there is an environmental factors, such as parenting, does not rule it out either.
Correlation vs causality. That makes a lot of sense because we have to be careful about the conclusions we draw. Just because things co-exist doesn't mean that we have the cause. Parenting style can definitely have negative effects on children as they grow even if it doesn't cause them to develop schizophrenia.
Little empirical research exists to support the idea of schizophrenic mothering/parenting.