LESSON 1: OVERVIEW AND The Middle Ages

HISTORICAL AND
CONTEMPORARY VIEWS OF  Mental disorders were the
ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY work of the devil.
 Exorcisms, food deprivation,
Definition and Examples of or torture were the primary
Abnormal Behavior “treatments” for these
persons.
 The definitions of abnormal  During the witch craze, those
in psychology have certain with mental disorders were
features in common, often tortured or killed because
called “the four Ds”: their difficulties were
deviance, distress, attributed to devil.
dysfunction, and danger.  As the Middle Ages drew to a
o Deviance: close, such explanations and
Behaviors, thoughts, treatments began to decline,
and emotions are and people with mental
different from each disorders were increasingly
societal norm and treated in hospitals instead of
culture (different, by the clergy.
extreme, unusual,
The Renaissance (Rebirth)
even bizarre).
o Distress: Extreme  Renaissance was the rise of
anxiety, sorrow, or humanism, or the worldview
pain (unpleasant, that emphasizes human
unsettling, or welfare and the uniqueness
discomfort). of the individual. This
o Disfunction: perspective helped continue
Interferes with daily the decline of supernatural
life function and/or views of mental illness.
activities.  Religious shrines became
o Danger: Causes dedicated to the humane
harm to self/others. treatment of such individuals.
 By the middle of the
sixteenth century, persons
with mental disorders were
Historical and Contemporary being placed in asylums.
Views of Abnormal Behavior  Was characterized by a
reaction against persecution
Greek and Romans
of the mentally ill.
 Abnormal behavior was  Paracelsus, a Swiss
caused by an imbalance of physician and alchemist who
the four bodily fluids, or proposed that the stars and
humors: black bile, yellow the planets caused abnormal
bile, blood, and phlegm. behavior.
 Treatment consisted of  German physician Johann
correcting the underlying Weyer published his book,
physical pathology through On the Deceits of the
diet and lifestyle. Demons, that rebutted the
 Church’s witch-hunting  Dorothea Dix led
handbook. He argued that development to ensure legal
the mentally ill should not be rights and protection for
held responsible for their people with mental disorders
actions, as they were and to establish state
mentally disturbed and not hospitals for their care.
possessed by demons or the  Unfortunately, some mental
Devil himself. He believed hospital patients received
that like the body, the mind minimal care.
was susceptible to illness.
The Early Twentieth Century
 According to Scot, physical
illness was the cause of  The decline of the moral
mental illness. treatment approach in the
 Though the intent was late 19th century led to the
benign in the beginning, as rise of two competing
the facilities overcrowded, perspectives – the biological
the patients came to be or somatogenic perspective
treated more like animals and the psychological or
than people. The asylum psychogenic perspective.
became a tourist attraction,  The biological or
with sightseers paying a somatogenic perspective
penny to view the more emphasizes the belief of
violent patients, and soon Greek physicians
was called “Bedlam” by local Hippocrates and Galen that
people; a term that today mental disorders were akin
means “a state of uproar and to physical disorders and had
confusion” natural causes.
 Emil Kraepelin in the late
The Nineteenth Century (Reform
1800s discovered that
Movement)
general paresis was caused
 Moral treatment was brought by the organic disease
by Philippe Pinel and William syphilis.
Tuke.  The same period saw the
 Pinel advocated for rise of the psychogenic
respectful treatment and perspective, which posits
moral guidance for the that the chief cause of
mentally ill. His approach l abnormal functioning is
 .ed to significant psychological, and the use of
improvements in patients' hypnotism is in treating
conditions, including the patients with hysterical
removal of chains, outdoor disorders was recognized.
exercise, and kindness.  Sigmund Freud’s
 Tuke's work led to the psychogenic approach,
passage of the Country psychoanalysis, eventually
Asylums Act of 1845, gained wide acceptance and
requiring every county to influenced future generations
provide asylum to the of clinicians.
mentally ill.
Mental Disorders strategies to prevent illness
and as a guide to the
 Are defined in terms of management of patients in
typical signs and symptoms whom disease has already
rather than identifiable developed.
causal factors.
Incidence
Syndrome
 The number of new cases of
 Group of Symptoms that a disorder that appear in a
appear together and are population during a specific
assumed to represent a period of time.
specific type of disorder.
 There are no definitive Prevalence
psychological or biological
tests that can be used to  Total number of active
confirm the presence of cases, both old and new, that
psychopathology. are present in a population
 Nowadays, the diagnosis of during a specific period of
mental disorders depends on time (Susser et al., 2006).
observation ns of the Lifetime Prevalence
person’s behavior and
descriptions of personal  The total proportion of
experience. people in a given population
who have been affected by
the disorder at some point
Overview of Abnormal Psychology during their lives.

Culture Comorbidity

 The values, beliefs &  The presence of more than

practices that are shared by one condition within the
a specific community or same period of time.
group of people.
 It has profound influence on
opinions regarding the History of Abnormal Psychology
difference between normal
 The history of psychological
and abnormal behavior.
disorders stretches back to
Epidemiology ancient times, when
abnormal behavior often
 The scientific study of the attributed to evil spirits,
frequency and distribution of demons, gods, or witches
disorders with a population. who took control of the
 It is concerned with person.
questions such as whether  This demonic possession
the frequency of disorder has often occurred when the
increased or decrease during person engaged in behavior
a particular period. contrary to the religious
 Epidemiological information teachings of the time.
is used to plan and evaluate
  There is evidence that Stone an attempt to restore the
Age cultures used ideal balance.
trephination, a primitive form  These were often called
of brain surgery, to treat “heroic” treatments because
abnormal behavior. they were drastic and painful
 Early Greek, Hebrew, attempts to reverse the
Egyptian, and Chinese course of an illness. They
cultures used exorcism to involved bloodletting and
cast out evil spirits. purging as well as the use of
 Methods included prayer, heat and cold.
magic, flogging, starvation,
horrible tasting drinks, or
noisemaking.

The Greek Tradition in Medicine

Hippocrates

 Greek physician who

ridiculed demonological
accounts of illness and
insanity.
 He emphasized the role of
 Hypothesized that abnormal
stress, diet, heredity, and
behavior, like other forms of
head injury in physical and
disease, had natural causes.
mental problems.
Specifically, they arose from
 Provided detailed description
brain pathology, or head
of mental disorders such as
trauma/brain dysfunction or
mania, melancholia and
disease.
paranoia.
 According to him, health
depended on a balance of Trephination
the four bodily fluids, or
humors: black bile (spleen),  Also called trepanation.
yellow bile or choler (liver),  A surgical procedure in
blood (heart), and phlegm which a disk of bone is
(brain). removed from the skull with a
 Mental disorders occurred circular instrument (a
when the humors were in a trephine) having a saw-like
state of imbalance such as edge.
an excess of yellow bile  On the basis of evidence
causing frenzy and too much found in skulls of Neolithic
black bile causing humans, trephining is
melancholia or depression. believed to be one of the
 For Hippocrates, all oldest types of surgery.
problems were considered to  Among the numerous
be the result of an imbalance conjectural reasons given for
of body fluids, and treatment the practice is that it was a
procedures were designed in treatment for headaches,
infections, skull fractures,
 convulsions, mental psychiatric patients so that
disorders, or supposed they would develop a fever.
demonic possession.  (Original Rationale) is
Observation that symptoms
The Creation of Asylum sometimes disappeared in
 In Europe during the Middle patients who became ill with
Ages “lunatics” and “idiots” typhoid fever.
as the mentally ill and Insulin Coma Therapy
intellectually disabled were
commonly called aroused  Insulin was injected into
little interest and were given psychiatric patients to lower
marginal care. the sugar content of the
 Disturbed behavior was blood and induce a
considered to be the hypoglycemic state and deep
responsibility of the family coma.
rather than the community or  (Original Rationale)
state. Observed mental changes
 In the1600’s and 1700’s among some diabetic drug
“insane asylums” were addicts who were treated
established to house the with insulin.
mentally disturbed.
Lobotomy
Lunatic Asylums
 A sharp knife was inserted
 The original mental hospitals. through a hole that was
 Were created to serve bored in the patient’s skull,
heavily populated cities and severing nerve fibers
to assume responsibilities connecting the frontal lobes
that had previously been to the rest of the brain.
performed by individual  (Original Rationale)
families. Observation that the same
 The condition of the facilities surgical procedure with
(chaining inhabitants, chimpanzees led to a
mistreatments, and beatings) reduction in the display of
led to the reform movement. negative emotion during
 Philippe Pinel – France stress.
 William Tuke – England
 Benjamin Rush and
Dorothea Dix – United States Other Developments in Abnormal
Psychology

Somatic Treatments Introduced Thomas Szasz

and Widely Employed in the  Mental disorders do not truly
1920’s & 1930’s exist but were invented by
Fever Therapy psychiatrists to justify power
and social control over
 Blood from people with others.
malaria was injected into
Pinel

 Developed the classification

system of disorders
o Melancholia
o Mania without
Delirium
o Mania with Delirium
o Dementia
o Idiotism

Emil Kraepelin

 Developed the classification

system of disorders
o Dementia Praecox
o Manic-depressive
Psychosis
 He emphasized the role of
the central nervous system
and the brain in the
development of mental
disorders.

Louis Pasteur

 Germ theory of disease

(syphilis).

Joseph Breuer

 “Talking cure”
 Freud and Breuer’s studies
in Hysteria started the
recognition of the effect of
psychological factors on
behavior, the superior
efficacy of “talking
treatments” over harsh
treatments.

Adolf Meyer

 Psychobiology theory
 He proposed that organic,
psychological, and
environmental factors
contributed to
psychopathology.