Chapter 1 - History of Abnormal Psychology Flashcards
What is Abnormal Psychology?
The field devoted to the scientific study of abnormal behaviour undertaken to describe, predict, explain and change abnormal patterns of functioning
What do Clinical scientists do?
Gather information systematically so as to describe, predict, and explain abnormal psychology
What do Clinical practitioners?
Use the knowledge acquired by clinical scientists to detect, assess, and treat abnormal patterns of functioning
What are norms?
A society’s stated and unstated rules for proper conduct
Often called the 4 D’s to describe the patterns of psychological abnormality, What are the certain features common in most definitions of abnormality?
Deviance, Distress, Dysfunction, and Danger
What is abnormal behaviour, thoughts, and emotions?
Those that differ from a society’s ideas about proper psychological functioning
Do judgments about what constitutes abnormality vary from society to society?
Yes, they differ as a society’s norm grow from its particular culture
Can a society’s understanding of what is psychologically abnormal change?
Yes, when a society’s values change, what is defined as psychologically abnormal can change too
What constitutes abnormality?
specific circumstances (context) as well as cultural norms, it can be unusual but explainable
Is Danger the exception or the rule?
Research suggests that danger is actually more often the exception as most people struggling with anxiety, depression, etc pose no immediate danger to themselves or others
What is eccentricity?
an unusual pattern with which others have no right to interefere
Behaviour considered abnormal requires?
intervention, if a professional does not deem the unusual behaviour as abnormal than it is considered eccentric
What is psychological abnormalities?
Patterns of functioning that are deviant, distressful, dysfunctional, and sometimes dangerous (vague and subjective)
What is therapy/treatment?
A procedure designed to change abnormal behaviour into more normal behaviour
What is needed to be considered therapy/treatment
A special, systematic procedure for helping the client overcome their psychological difficulties, its designed to change abnormal behaviour into more normal behaviour
What are the three essential features of therapy?
- A sufferer who seeks relief from the healer
- A trained, socially accepted healer, whose expertise is accepted by the sufferer and his or her social group
- A series of contacts between the healer and the sufferer
Job of the healer?
To produce certain changes in the sufferer’s emotional state, attitudes, and behaviour
Clinicians who see abnormality as a illness define the person as
A patient
Clinicians who see abnormality as a problem in living define the person as
A client
What is trephination
An ancient operation in which a stone instrument was used to cut away a circular section of the skill to treat abnormal behaviour
In ancient times, how was abnormality interpreted?
Abnormal behaviour was typically interpreted as a victory by evil spirits, and the cure for such behaviour was to force the demons from a victims’s body
What is proof of how early societies interpreted abnormality?
Egyptian, Chinese, and Hebrew writings as well as the Bible, all account for psychological deviance in this way
What would these early societies do to cure it?
Exorcisms, idea to coax the evil spirits to leave the body or make the body “uncomfortable” to live in
What are the Greek and Roman Views of abnormality?
Hippocrates taught that illnesses had natural causes, abnormal behaviour was a disease arising from internal physical problems
What is Hippocrate’s theory?
Abnormality was the cause of brain pathology that resulted from an imbalance of four fluids/humors and brain disease
What are humors?
Bodily chemicals that influence mental and physical functioning (personality). Yellow bile, black bile, blood and phlegm
What are the Greek and Roman treatments of abnormality?
Hippocrates sought to correct the underlying physical pathology