An Emotional Schema for the Causes of Psychiatric Disorders

The search for the cause of schizophrenia is one that is as old as when the diagnosis was first proposed by Emil Kraepelin, who believed the disease was biological in nature. Currently, schizophrenia remains “a disease... [ view full abstract ]

The search for the cause of schizophrenia is one that is as old as when the diagnosis was first proposed by Emil Kraepelin, who believed the disease was biological in nature. Currently, schizophrenia remains “a disease whose mechanisms are totally unknown” (Holden, 2003, p. 333), and more broadly, the disease still has "no validated biomarkers" (Insel and Wang, 2010, p. 1971).

The field of mental health lacks a solid theoretical framework to explain how the mind works in regards to the health/disease continuum, and without this, research will continue to proceed on a trial and error basis (Farrar, 2015).  What is primarily missing in the search for the cause of schizophrenia is the inclusion of spontaneous recovery and the failure of the literature to demonstrate the long term efficacy of psychotropic medications. Therefore, it is the purpose of this presentation to develop a theory, based on available literature, which includes explanations for the full data set and offers an ability to predict outcomes to future studies.

This paper hypothesizes that when the full data set (short, medium, and long) for both medicated and non-medicated outcomes is combined with recent findings in neuroscience and epidemiology regarding symptom prevalence in the general population, a schema based in affective neuroscience is best able to explain the outcomes and why certain interventions are successful while others are not. In short, individuals have an emotional capacity that is personally distinct for each separate emotion.  When emotionally competent stimuli propel the individual beyond their capacity, pathological symptoms develop.  Medication may dull the emotions, thereby bringing them within the management capacity, but the body tends to habituate.  Psychosocial interventions tend to either lessen or enlarge the intensity of emotionally competent stimuli.  Finally, memory tends to decay over time, thus impacting emotionally competent stimuli.