Among the experiences that psychotic people fail to integrate, those relating to their social environment seem to play a crucial role. Recent major advances in the understanding of schizophrenia have been based on the recognition that the disorder cannot be understood by focusing on the individual patients, but has to be perceived in the context of their relations to other people. Numerous studies of families of schizophrenics have shown that the person who is diagnosed as being psychotic is, almost without exception, part of a network of extremely disturbed patterns of communication within the family. The illness manifested in the identified patient is a really a disorder of the entire family system. The central characteristic in the communication patterns of families of diagnosed schizophrenics was identified by Gregory Bateson as a double bind situation. Bateson found that the behaviour labeled schizophrenic represents a special strategy, which a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation. Such a person finds himself facing a situation within his family that seems to put him into an untenable position, a situation in which he cant win, no matter what he does. For example, the double bind may be set up for a child by contradictory verbal and nonverbal messages, either from one or from both parents, with both kinds of messages implying punishment or threats to the childs emotional security. When these situations occur repeatedly, the double-bind structure may become a habitual expectation in the childs mental life, and this is likely to generate schizophrenic experiences and behaviour. This does not mean that everybody becomes schizophrenic in such a situation. What exactly makes one person psychotic while another remains normal under the same external circumstances is a complex question, likely to involve biochemical and genetic factors that are not yet well understood. In particular the effects of nutrition on mental health need much further exploration.
1. It can be inferred from the passage that schizophrenia is
A. a manifestation of the disturbed communication among the members of the family, on an individual.
B. a psychosomatic condition in which the integrity between body and mind ruptures and thereby a disturbance created.
C. a condition in which the immediate social system fails to welcome and integrate an individual to its fold.
D. a defense mechanism by which an individual rejects the communication pattern of one of the parents.
E. a biological breakdown in which the various systems of the body loses balance, thereby affecting the individuals mental health.
2. Which of the following defines the double bind situation as discussed in para 2?
A. A situation resulting in split personality.
B. A situation in which a patient is confronted with conflicting life goals.
C. A situation in which an individual is faced with a contradictory situation with the family.
D. A situation in which a person is in conflict with his goal and the goal of his family members.
E. A situation in which an individual is faced with an approach-approach conflict.
3. The author of the passage is most likely to agree with which of the following observations about psychosis?
A. There has been no concerted effort to analyze and understand psychosis.
B. The reasons why individuals become psychotic do not lie in simplistic questions.
C. Schizophrenia is directly linked more to genetic factors than to environmental factors.
D. Psychosis is a condition arising solely from an individuals environment.
E. These has not been any significant research or development in our awareness of schizophrenia.
4. In his statement, the effects of nutrition on mental health need further exploration, the authors tone is
A. hopelessness B. pessimism C. indifference D. matter-of-fact E. bitterness
Ans.
1.a
2.c
3.b
4.d
