Schizophrenia Causation How Genetics, Brain Term Paper

Much of advice to parents of schizophrenics tended to be judgmental, before the environmental and genetic factors of the illness were known: Theories blaming schizophrenogenic or emotionally withdrawn mothers are now almost totally discredited. What current research attempts to suggest is that "family and environmental stressors -- encompassing very subtle interactions common to many families -- work only in tandem with biological determinants to produce psychosis [and schizophrenia]" (McFarlane 2007). In giving advice to families how to reduce their offspring's stress and tendency to exhibit the disorder, therapists tread a delicate line between advice and blame. Uncontrollable biological genetic and environmental factors and controllable genetic and nurturing factors all seem to play an unclear role in causing the disease to manifest in an individual.

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