About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about the psychological causes of schizophrenia, focusing in particular on: (i) family dysfunction and cognitive causes; (ii) how the research into family dysfunction as a cause of schizophrenia has evolved over time, from the concept of the ‘schizophrenogenic mother’ to models focussing on family interactions more broadly, including the notion of ‘communication deviance’ and ‘expressed emotion’; (iii) some of the cognitive domains which become impaired in schizophrenia, including perception, memory, reasoning and language.

About the lecturer

Mr Kevin Silber is a senior lecturer at the University of Derby where he primarily teaches biological psychology modules. Mr Silber is also an AQA A-Level examiner and is involved in authoring texts for A-Level psychology. Having started life as a neuroscientist, Mr Silber’s research interests still lie in biologically oriented topics. However, his main research interest is now focused on body image. Some of Mr Silber’s recent publications include ‘Working memory in children: A developmental approach to the phonological coding of pictorial material’ (2011) and ‘Sexual orientation and the sleep-wake cycle: A preliminary investigation’ (2000).