chapter 1 Flashcards
Continuum model of abnormality
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.
Definition of psychopathology
- The study of abnormal psychology. The study of people who suffer mental, emotional, and often physical pain.
- Understanding, treating, and preventing psychological dysfunction
Four D’s of abnormality:
- 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
The disease model
- Common belief: mental illness is a disease process; behaviors, thoughts, and feelings are pathological
- Modern view: mental disorders are a collection of problems
Cultural relativism
- 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
Exorcism
driving evil spirits from the body
trephination
the practice of drilling holes in the skulls of people displaying abnormal behaviors in order to free them from “evil spirits”
Ancient Chinese theories: yin/yang
- 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.
Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome:
- Biological theories dominated
- Believed womens symptoms stemed from a “wandering uterus”; ex: in throat = choking,coughing, loss of voice; in chest = chest pains
Ancient Greece and Rome:
Thought abnormality was affliction from the Gods
Hysteria:
- 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.
Hippocrates: body’s humors, 4 categories of abnormality, treatment recommendations:
- 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
Medieval views: psychic epidemics
- 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
Mental hygiene movement
- 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
Moral treatment: definition and why the movement failed
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
Key figures in moral treatment movement
Philippe Pinel, William Tuke, Dorothea Dix
Philippe Pinel
- 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
William Tuke
- 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
Dorothea Dix
- 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
Key figures in early biological perspectives:
Griesinger, Kraepelin
Wilhelm Griesinger:
Wrote The Pathology and Therapy of Psychic Disorders which presented the argument that all pathological disorders could be explained with brain pathology
Emil Kraepelin:
Developed a classification scheme for disorders that is the basis for our modern classification systems
General paresis
- 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
Key psychoanalytic figures:
Mesmer, Charcot, Freud, Breuer
Frank Anton Mesmer and Mesmerism
- 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
Jean Charcot:
- 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
Sigmund Freud and Josef Bruer:
- 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
Sigmund Freud:
ideas influenced literature on psychopathology, literary theory, anthropology and still influence the humanities today
Key figures in behaviorism:
Ivan Pavlov, John Watson, E.L. Thorndike, B.F. Skinner
Behaviorism:
study of the impact of rewards and punishments on behavior
Ivan Pavlov:
russian physiologist that discovered classical conditioning with dogs
John Watson:
- studied behaviors, especially phobias, using classical conditioning
- Boasted that he could train any healthy child into any adult he wished
E.L. Thorndike + B.F. Skinner:
- studied operant conditioning
- The idea that behaviors followed by positive consequences are more likely to be repeated than behaviors followed by negative ones
Key cognitive figures:
Albert Bandura, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck
Albert Bandura:
self-efficacy beliefs determine well being
Albert Ellis:
- 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
Aaron Beck:
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Cognitive therapy that focused on the irrational thoughts people with psychological problems had
Patients rights movement:
ensure patients recieve basic rights and care
Deinstitutionalization:
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)
Community Health Movement:
- move patients from long-term care facilities to short-term and community mental health centers
- Launched by JFK in 1963
Pros and Cons of Community Health Movement:
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
