Week 1: Introduction to Abnormal Psychology

Question 1

What is a psychological disorder?

Answer 1

Characterised by disability, violation of social norms, dysfunction and personal distress.

Question 2

What is stigma?

Answer 2

Negative societal beliefs of a group of individuals with a particular characteristic, potentially enabling discrimination.

Question 3

According to research, which mental illnesses have the stigma of being a danger to others and unpredictable?

Answer 3

Schizophrenia, alcohol addiction and drug addiction (between 64.2%-77% of respondents)

Question 4

According to research, which mental illnesses have the stigma of “self to blame for illness”?

Answer 4

SUDs

Question 5

What are key elements to reducing stigma?

Answer 5

Education mainly.

Then understanding and acceptance.

Question 6

Why does stigma exist?

Answer 6

• lack of understanding
• negative beliefs of MI (media sensationalism)
• origins of MI

Question 7

What is demonology?

Answer 7

A belief from the stone age that stated that the
“troubled mind” or presentation of mental illness was caused by possession by evil spirits or the result of displeased Gods.

Question 8

What was the treatment for demonology/ MI in the Stone Age?

Answer 8

• Laying hands and praying
• exorcism
• Trephination (holes in brain)

Question 9

Somatogenesis is an early biological explanation for MI.

Describe the theory.

Answer 9

Hippocrates (~400BC)

• rejected demontology
• MI caused by brain - health resorted by balance of humour
• 4 humours (yellow bile, black bile, blood and phlegm).
• Mania, melancholia, phrenitis (Delirium, brain fever)

Question 10

What are the two major ways in which Hippocrates early biological explanation shaped modern thinking?

Answer 10

1. Behaviour markedly affected by bodily function

2. Illness is an indicator of chemical imbalance

Question 11

Outline the history of MI during the Middle Ages (200 A.D - 14th Century)

Answer 11

• rise of the church
• return to supernatural explanations
• Pope Innocent & Malleus Maleficarum (demons blamed for widespread probs. in Europe)
• witch trials/ Lunacy trials of the 14th century

Question 12

What was the Malleus Maleficarum?

Answer 12

Guide for identifying witches during the witch trials of the 14th century.

Question 13

Describe the conditions of Asylums in the 1400s

Answer 13

-leprosariums
- “Bedlam” - most famous St Mary’s of Bethlehem in L
ondon
-poor treatments: blood letting, little food or care, spread of diseases.

Question 14

Why was Pinel’s reform (Pussin’s) significant (1745-1826)?

Answer 14

allowed people to roam freely in asylums - problematic because this freedom was reserved for the rich.

Question 15

What did Dorothy Dix introduce (1802- 1887)

Answer 15

introduced the Moral Treatment of patients. Caring, encouraged them to lead normal lives, talked to them.

Question 16

What are the biological approaches (treatments)

Answer 16

Francis Galton 
 - Eugenics
 - Nature Vs Nurture debate
 - 1800's -1900s US law 
   prohibited ppl with MI to 
   marry/ reproduce

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

Frontal Lobotomy

Question 17

What are the biological concepts which are used to understand mental illness?

Answer 17

Genetics

• genotype
• phenotype
• Epigenetic

Disorders can be inherited

Disorders arise from brain disfunction

Question 18

Who were the key founders of the psychological approaches to mental illness and what approaches did they found, during the following time periods:

1700’s
1800’s
1900’s

Answer 18

1700s
Jean-Martin Charcot - Mesmer & Charcot (Hypnosis)

1800s
Josef Breuer - The Cathartic method (Anna O - talk therapy)

1900s
Sigmund Freud - Psychoanalysis - the unconscious, defence mechanisms

Alfred Adler - the collective unconscious

Carl Jung - Individual psychology

Question 19

What are the modern influences of Freudian ideologies and psychoanalysis

Answer 19

1. Childhood experiences –> adult personality
2. Unconscious influences behaviour
3. Not all causes & purposes of behaviour have an obvious explanation

Question 20

What developments occurred in the psychological approaches during the late 1900s and early 2000s?

Answer 20

late 1900’s –> behaviourism

late 1900’s/early 2000’s –> cognitive approaches

Question 21

What are the origins of modern day stigma allied to mental illness.

Answer 21

• Initial belief of supernatural causes/ evil spirits

- poor treatment of MI - asylums, limited freedom, eugenics