1.2 Historical and Contemporary Views of Abnormal Behavior

Historical Views of Abnormal Behavior

Demonology, Gods, and Magic

Abnormal behavior attributed to demonic possession
Differentiated good vs. bad spirits based on the individual’s symptoms
Religious significance of possession
Primary treatment for demonic possession was exorcism a. Various techniques including magic, prayer, incantation, noisemaking, and use of horrible-tasting concoctions

Hippocrates (460-377 B.C) Early Medical Concepts from Greek

Proposing that mental disorders had natural causes
Categorizing disorders as mania, melancholia, or phrenitis
Associating dreams and personality

Early Philosophical Conceptions of Consciousness

Plato (429-347 B.C.)

Viewed psychological phenomena as responses of the whole organism
In The Republic, he emphasized individual differences and sociocultural influences
Discussed hospital care
Believed that mental disorders were in part divinely caused

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Wrote lasting description of consciousness
“Thinking” as directed would eliminate pain, attain pleasure

Later Greek and Roman Thought

Egyptian: proposed wide range of therapeutic measures like dieting, massage, hydrotherapy, gymnastics and education.
Greek: proposed disease based on flow of atoms through the pores in the body. Galen from Greek (130-200) provided anatomy of nervous system.
Roman: medicine focused on comfort.

Early Views of Mental Disorders in China

One of earliest foci on mental disorders (2674 B.C.)
Emphasis on natural causes
Chung Ching: “Hippocrates of China”
Experienced brief “Dark Ages” that blamed supernatural causes (late 200-900 A.D.)
Incorporation of ideas from Western psychiatry in last 50 years

Views of Abnormality During the Middle Ages

Middle East: had scientific approach.
Europe: was plagued with mass madness.
Relating the mental illness with witchcraft, and treatment included exorcism

Toward Humanitarian Approaches

The Resurgence of Scientific Questioning in Europe

Renaissance:

Led to resurgence of scientific questioning in Europe
Part of humanism movement

The Establishment of Early Asylums

First established in Sixteenth Century
“Madhouses”“Bedlam” storage places for the insane
Found throughout Europe; parts of U.S.
Aggressive treatment to restore “physical balance in body and brain”

Humanitarian Reform

France:
Philippe Pinel (1745-1826)
unchained patients, placed them in sunny rooms and treated them with exercise and kindness
England:
William Tuke, Quakers (1732-1822)
established the York Retreat, a country house for the mentally ill. He treated with kindness and acceptance
America:
Benjamin Rush (1745-1813): emphasized spiritual and moral development
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790): proposed using electricity to treat melancholia
Dorothy Dix (1802-1887): suitable hospitals were built

The military’s role in mental health treatment:

American Civil War (1861-1865)
First mental health facility opened
Germany (1870-1914)
Developed program of military psychiatry following FrancoPrussian War
Contributed to field of abnormal psychology

Nineteenth-Century Views of the Causes and Treatment of Mental Disorders

Alienists (psychiatrists):

Gained control of asylums
Emotional problems (“shattered nerves”) were caused by the expenditure of energy or by the depletion of bodily energies as a result of excesses in living

Changing Attitudes Toward Mental Health in the Early Twentieth Century

Clifford Beers (1876-1943):

Described own mental collapse in A Mind That Found Itself in 1908
Straitjacket was still widely used
Began campaign for reform

Mental Hospital Care in the Twentieth Century

1940
Most mental hospitals inhumane and ineffective
1946
- Mary Jane Ward published The Snake Pit
- National Institutes of Mental Health
- Hill–Burton Act (funded community mental health hospitals)
1963
- Community Health Services Act (develop outpatient psychiatric clinics, community consultations, and rehab programs)

Deinstitutionalization Movement

Large numbers of mental hospital closures and shift to community-based residences
Global movement: Asia, Europe, U.S.
Considered more humane and cost effective
Created problems for both patients and society as a whole

The Emergence of Contemporary Views of Abnormal Behavior

Recent changes:

Biological discoveries
Development of mental disorders classification system
Emergence of psychological causation views
Experimental psychological research developments

Biological Discoveries

Biological and anatomical factors recognized as underlying both physical and mental disorders
Cure for general paresis (syphilis of the brain)
Raised hopes that organic bases would be found for many other mental disorders
Mental disorders an illness based on brain pathology
Downside: removal of body parts, lobotomies

The Development of a Classification System

Kraepelin:

Compendium der Psychiatrie (1883): forerunner to DSM
Specific types of mental disorders identified

Emergence of psychological causation views

Mesmerism:

Diseases treated by “animal magnetism”
Source of heated discussion in early nineteenth century

Nancy School

Hypnotism and hysteria are related and due to suggestion
Hysteria, a form of self-hypnosis, could be caused and removed by hypnosis

Nancy School–Charcot debate

Are mental disorders caused by biological or psychological factors?

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)

First major steps toward understanding psychological factors in mental disorders
Psychoanalytic perspective:
Catharsis (repressed emotions.)
The unconscious
Free association
Dream analysis
Emphasizes inner dynamics of unconscious motives

Experimental psychological research developments

Wilhelm Wundt: First experimental psychological laboratory
J. McKeen Cattell: Wundt’s methods to U.S.
Lightner Witmer: First American psychological clinic

Behavioral perspective:

Role of learning in humanbehavior.

Classical Conditioning
Neutral stimulus repeatedly paired with unconditioned stimulus; naturally elicits an unconditioned behavior
Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson
Operant Conditioning
E. L. Thorndike, B. F. Skinner