What is abnormal psychology and History?

Question 1

What is abnormal psychology?

Answer 1

Abnormal psychology is the study of psychological problems ie. psychopathology, maladjustment, emotional disturbances, mental illnesses that deviate from typical human behaviour.

Question 2

Clinical scientists

Answer 2

Systematically gather information through field research

Question 3

Clinical practitioners

Answer 3

Detect and assess abnormal patterns of behaviour and treat patients using the research of clinical scientists

Question 4

What are the four D’s?

Answer 4

Deviance, distress, dysfunction, and danger

Question 5

Deviance

Answer 5

Different, extreme, unusual, and perhaps bizarre that are different from those considered normal psychological functioning in our place and time.
-Depend on specific circumstances and culture

Question 6

Distress

Answer 6

Unpleasant or upsetting to the person

Question 7

Dysfunction

Answer 7

Interferes with the person’s ability to conduct daily activities in a constructive way

Question 8

Danger

Answer 8

Behaviour that is harmful to oneself or others; deminstrate careless, hostile, or confusing behaviour
-exception rather than rule

Question 9

Thomas Szasz

Answer 9

Deviations that society calls abnormal are simply ‘problems in living’. Any definition of abnormality may be unable to be applied consistently.
-Societal involvement may invalidate the concept of mental illness.
-Taking away of rights through putting in mental institutions. Shouldn’t treat against personal will.
-Forces psychiatry into a biological problem and ignores cultural differences
-Difficult to get to the heart of what mental illness is across time and culture.

Question 10

DSM V Definition of Abnormal Psychology

Answer 10

Behavioural, psychological, or biological dysfunction that are unexpected in their cultural context and associated with present distress and impairment in functioning, or increased risk of suffering, death, pain, or impairment

Question 11

Why is abnormality hard to define?

Answer 11

-Abnormality has an elusive nature.
-It is defined by general criteria in society. Everything in mental health is rooted in societal function.
-It is different than medical diseases that are rooted in biological functions.
-Categories of the DSMV are created by consensus of old white men, not based on the scientific method.

Question 12

How is abnormal function determined?

Answer 12

-Criteria of DSM V is often used to judge cases and see if an individual fits into a particular category.
-Subjective judgement call

Question 13

Jerome Wakefield

Answer 13

Psychological disorders are caused by a failure of a natural mental or behavioural mechanism to perform their evolved function. This function cases harm or distress.
-If mechanism fails, can say something is disordered.
-Evolutionary psychologist

Question 14

Abnormal psychology in prehistoric societies

Answer 14

-All events resulted from the actions of magical and perhaps sinister beings that controlled the world.
-Human body is battle ground between evil and good
Abnormal behaviour was a victory of evil spirits

Question 15

Trephination

Answer 15

A stone instrument or trephine was used to cut away a circular section of the skull to release evil spirits.
- Performed on people with severe abnormal behaviour

Question 16

Exorcism

Answer 16

-Practiced to coax evil spirits to leave or make a ‘hosts’ body uncomfortable place to live in. Often performed by a shaman or priest.
-Plead with, insult, perform magic, make loud noises, drink bitter potions, even whipping or starving.
Practiced in Egyptian, Chinese, and Hebrew societies.

Question 17

Hippocrates and Ancient Greek society 500BCE-500CE

Answer 17

Illnesses had natural causes, abnormal behaviour is a disease arising from internal physical problems.
-Imbalance of the four humours
-Yellow bile, black bile, blood, phlegm

Question 18

Middle Ages 500-1350CE

Answer 18

Resurgence of demonology due to increasing power of the clergy. Highly superstitious, and high value of religiosity. Abnormal behaviour greatly increased during this period.
-Rejected science
-Controlled education
-Deviant behaviour evidence of Satan’s influence

Question 19

Mass Madness

Answer 19

Large numbers of people shared false beliefs and imagined sights or sounds.

Question 20

Tarantism

Answer 20

A form of mass madness in which people suddenly start jumping, dancing, and going into convulsions.

Question 21

Lycanthropy

Answer 21

People thought they were possessed by animals; acted animal-like and imagined fur was growing all over their bodies

Question 22

Renaissance early 1400-1500s

Answer 22

A period of flourishing cultural and scientific activity. Religious shrines devoted to the humane and loving treatment of people with mental disorders.
-Development of asylums

Question 23

Johann Weyer

Answer 23

First physician to specialize in mental illness; believed the mind was as susceptible to sickness as the body was.
-Founder of modern psychopathology

Question 24

Renaissance mid 1500s

Answer 24

Improvement in care faded converted mental hospitals and monasteries into asylums. Private homes and community residences only contain small amounts
-Treated with cruelty and bad conditions

Question 25

Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam)

Answer 25

Bounded patients in chains, became a tourist attraction

Question 26

19th Century (1800s)

Answer 26

Treatment of people with mental disorders began to improve, asylum reform. Spread of moral treatment, emphasized moral guidance and humane, respectful techniques.
-Deserve individual care

Question 27

Philippe Pinel

Answer 27

Chief physician of all male asylum called La Bicetre. Believed patients were sick and should be treated with sympathy
-Patients could move freely around hospital ground, live in good conditions

Question 28

William Tuke

Answer 28

founded York Retreat
-30 mental patients lived as guests in quiet house. Treated with rest, talk, prayer, labour.

Question 29

Benjamin Rush

Answer 29

physician at Pennsylvania hospital, founder of American psychiatry.
-Required hiring of intelligent and sensitive attendants to work closely with patients.

Question 30

Dorothea Dix

Answer 30

Made humane care a public and political concern in the US. Lead to new laws and greater government funding to improve the treatment of people with mental disorders

Question 31

1850s-1900 (early)

Answer 31

Reversal of the moral treatment movement and beginning of a new wave of prejudice against people with mental illness. View that mentally ill were dangerous.
-Many patients were poor foreign immigrants

Question 32

Somatogenic perspective

Answer 32

Abnormal psychological functioning has physical causes, influenced by Hippocrates’ view.
-Influenced by biological discoveries such as syphillis.
-Tooth extractions, tonsillectomy, hydrotherapy, lobotomy, eugenic sterilization for ‘treatment’
-medications

Question 33

Emil Krapelin

Answer 33

Factors such as fatigue are responsible for mental dysfunction.

Question 34

Psychogenic Perspective

Answer 34

Chief causes of abnormal functioning are often psychological.
-Hypnotism
-Psychoanalysis

Question 35

Hypnotism

Answer 35

Trancelike mental state in which a person can become extremely suggestible

Question 36

Friedrich Anton Mesmer

Answer 36

Patients that suffered from hysterical disorders were treated though mesmerism, inducing a trancelike state

Question 37

Hippolyte-Marie Bernheim and Ambroise-Auguste Liebault

Answer 37

Hysterical disorders could be induced in otherwise normal people; experience deafness, paralysis, blindness, or numbness

Question 38

Psychoanalysis

Answer 38

Sigmund Freud; The unconscious psychological processes are at the root of such functioning.
-Hel troubled people game insight into unconscious, psychological processes to help patients overcome psychological problems.
-Outpatient therapy.