chapter 1

Question 1

Continuum model of abnormality

Answer 1

Problems in thoughts, feelings, and behavior vary from very normal to abnormal (fall in a continuum from normal to abnormal). There is no clear dividing line between normal variations in thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and what would be labeled as abnormal. Distinguishing between “normality” and “abnormality” is often subjective.

Question 2

Definition of psychopathology

Answer 2

• The study of abnormal psychology. The study of people who suffer mental, emotional, and often physical pain.
• Understanding, treating, and preventing psychological dysfunction

Question 3

Four D’s of abnormality:

Answer 3

• Dysfunction: interferes with the ability to function in everyday life
• Distress: causes emotional or physical pain
• Deviant: differs from typical behavior
• Dangerousness: harmful behaviors and feelings

Question 4

The disease model

Answer 4

• Common belief: mental illness is a disease process; behaviors, thoughts, and feelings are pathological
• Modern view: mental disorders are a collection of problems

Question 5

Cultural relativism

Answer 5

• There are no universal rules for deciding abnormality
• Cultural norms define abnormality
• There is some danger in this, ex: Hitler called the Jews abnormal and used this as an excuse to mass murder

Question 6

Exorcism

Answer 6

driving evil spirits from the body

Question 7

trephination

Answer 7

the practice of drilling holes in the skulls of people displaying abnormal behaviors in order to free them from “evil spirits”

Question 8

Ancient Chinese theories: yin/yang

Answer 8

• Positive force, yang, and negative force, yin, must be in balance for the individual to be healthy
• Emotions controlled by internal organs and “vital air”.
• Ex: when air flows on heart person feels joy, lungs is sorrow, liver is anger, spleen is worry, and kidney is fear.

Question 9

Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome:

Answer 9

• Biological theories dominated
• Believed womens symptoms stemed from a “wandering uterus”; ex: in throat = choking,coughing, loss of voice; in chest = chest pains

Question 10

Ancient Greece and Rome:

Answer 10

Thought abnormality was affliction from the Gods

Question 11

Hysteria:

Answer 11

• in greek means “uterus”
• what Greeks named the wandering uterus problem.
• Treatments: vaginal fumigations, bitter potions, balms, fragrances, and vaginal wool inserts that would bring uterus back to its proper place; also though marriage, sex, and pregnancy was ultimate treatment.

Question 12

Hippocrates: body’s humors, 4 categories of abnormality, treatment recommendations:

Answer 12

• Thought abnormality was caused by imbalance in the body’s humors
• The bodily humors are blood, phlem, yellow bile, and black bile
• 4 categories of abnormal behavior: epilepsy, mania, melancholia, and brain fever
  Treatment recommendations: restore balance to the bodily humors; Ex: bleeding a patient that had excess blood, rest and relaxation, change of climate/scenery, change of diet, living a temperate life, removing patient from their difficult family

Question 13

Medieval views: psychic epidemics

Answer 13

• Psychic epidemics: crowd engages in unusual behaviors that has a psychological origin; attributed both to possession by the devil at the time
• Dance frenzies: in Germany in 1374 a whole town danced for about 4 months, in 1428 a monk danced himself to death
• Tarantism: people started to get acute pains and attributed this to a tarantula bite, then they danced wildly, tore off their clothes, beat each other with whips, rolled in dirt

Question 14

Mental hygiene movement

Answer 14

• Idea is people develop problems because they become separated from nature and because of stress due to rapid social changes
• Treatments: prayer, incantations, rest + relaxation in a serene place

Question 15

Moral treatment: definition and why the movement failed

Answer 15

Definition: treating people with respect and dignity
Failed because:
- it grew too fast, the training and nursing staff could not keep up
- the quality of the treatment dropped
- immigrants from Europe came and the funding left because Americans did not want to share the resources

Question 16

Key figures in moral treatment movement

Answer 16

Philippe Pinel, William Tuke, Dorothea Dix

Question 17

Philippe Pinel

Answer 17

• French physician that took charge of La Bicetre in Paris and treated his patients well; let them roam freely, have windows, have access to good food, etc.
• Later reformed La Salpetriere in Paris as well (mental hospital for women)
  Result: many patients improved, some even returned to normality and were allowed to return home

Question 18

William Tuke

Answer 18

• Opened a quaker asylum in England called The Retreat
• Designed to restore patients self-restraint by treating them with respect and dignity and encouraging them to practice self-control

Question 19

Dorothea Dix

Answer 19

• Taught sunday school classes at a womens prison and relized how bad the conditions were and how many mentally ill women were kept there
• Worked to improve the treatment of people with mental illness
• Lobbied which led to passage of laws and appropriations to fund clean up of mental hospitals and training of mental health proffessionals
• Established 30 institutions in U.S. and beyond

Question 20

Key figures in early biological perspectives:

Answer 20

Griesinger, Kraepelin

Question 21

Wilhelm Griesinger:

Answer 21

Wrote The Pathology and Therapy of Psychic Disorders which presented the argument that all pathological disorders could be explained with brain pathology

Question 22

Emil Kraepelin:

Answer 22

Developed a classification scheme for disorders that is the basis for our modern classification systems

Question 23

General paresis

Answer 23

• A disease that leads to insanity, paralysis, and death
• Found out it was caused by syphillis which led to more ideas that biological factors are the cause of abnormal behaviors

Question 24

Key psychoanalytic figures:

Answer 24

Mesmer, Charcot, Freud, Breuer

Question 25

Frank Anton Mesmer and Mesmerism

Answer 25

• Austrian physician that thought distribution of magnetic fluid determined health
• Sat patients in the dark in a tub with chemicals and prodded affected regions of the body with iron rods
• Mesmerism: became known as hypnosis

Question 26

Jean Charcot:

Answer 26

• french neurologist that was an expert of psychological causes of abnormal behavior
• Believed hysteria was caused by degeneration of the brain
• After Bernheim and Liebault showed they could induces hysteria with hypnosis he because a leading researcher of psychological abnormality causes

Question 27

Sigmund Freud and Josef Bruer:

Answer 27

• Did alot of work with hypnosis, the unconscious mind, and catharsis
• Collaborated on a paper called On the Psychial Mechanisms of Hysterical Phenomena which laid the foundation for psychoanalysis
  Psychoanalysis: study of the unconscious mind
  Therapy focuses on the unconcious mind and reaching catharsis

Question 28

Sigmund Freud:

Answer 28

ideas influenced literature on psychopathology, literary theory, anthropology and still influence the humanities today

Question 29

Key figures in behaviorism:

Answer 29

Ivan Pavlov, John Watson, E.L. Thorndike, B.F. Skinner

Question 30

Behaviorism:

Answer 30

study of the impact of rewards and punishments on behavior

Question 31

Ivan Pavlov:

Answer 31

russian physiologist that discovered classical conditioning with dogs

Question 32

John Watson:

Answer 32

• studied behaviors, especially phobias, using classical conditioning
• Boasted that he could train any healthy child into any adult he wished

Question 33

E.L. Thorndike + B.F. Skinner:

Answer 33

• studied operant conditioning
• The idea that behaviors followed by positive consequences are more likely to be repeated than behaviors followed by negative ones

Question 34

Key cognitive figures:

Answer 34

Albert Bandura, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck

Question 35

Albert Bandura:

Answer 35

self-efficacy beliefs determine well being

Question 36

Albert Ellis:

Answer 36

• believed that people prone to psychological disorders are plagued by irrational negative assumptions about themselves and the world
• Developed rational-emotive therapy which was contraversial because therapists had to challenge patients irrational belief systems sometimes harshly, but became popular and pushed psych to study thought processes behind serious emotional problems

Question 37

Aaron Beck:

Answer 37

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Cognitive therapy that focused on the irrational thoughts people with psychological problems had

Question 38

Patients rights movement:

Answer 38

ensure patients recieve basic rights and care

Question 39

Deinstitutionalization:

Answer 39

integrating patients into the community
Was pushed by patients rights advocated that thought patients would recover more fully or live better lives if they were integrated into the community (with the help of some community based treatment facilities)

Question 40

Community Health Movement:

Answer 40

• move patients from long-term care facilities to short-term and community mental health centers
• Launched by JFK in 1963

Question 41

Pros and Cons of Community Health Movement:

Answer 41

Pros:
- Fewer people were institutionalized
- Many patients experienced better quality of life
Cons:
- The resources were inadequate so some “slipped through the cracks” because of health insurance, underfunding, etc.
- Increased homelessness
- Increased incarceration; prison system has replaced psychiatric hospitals as the largest institutions housing people with severe mental illness