Psychological Disorders
Chapter 12
Pages 483-521
Psychopathology
• In other words mental disorder or mental
illness
• According to the National Institutes of
Mental Health 15.4% of the population
suffers from a diagnosable mental health
problems
• Another study found that the behaviors of
over 56 million Americans meet the criteria
for a diagnosable psychological disorder
Changing Concepts of
Psychological Disorder
Different Perspectives:
Demonological
• The view that abnormal behavior reflect
invasion by evil spirits or demons.
• Stone Age humans developed trephiningthe practice of putting holes in the skull to
provide a passage for demons to get out of
the head
continued
• Trephining actually worked- today most
would agree b/c people were so afraid they
conformed to society.
• Ancient Greeks believed gods punished
people by causing confusion and madness
except Hippocrates (said Abnormal Behavior
caused by something in brain)
continued
• Massachusetts- Many believed ab. Behavior
was caused by possession of devil-called
these people witches( held responsible for
many things ranging from a neighbor’s
infertility to a poor yield of crops).
Cures
• An exorcist would pray for you and wave a
cross over you at night to send the devil
elsewhere…if that didn’t work you were
beaten, killed
• In Europe over 200,000 “witches” were
killed due to a publishing of manual of how
to recognize a witch.
• Salem witch trials
Witch testing
• Water-float test
• (pure metals sink to the bottom, impurities
float to surface) suspects who sank were
considered pure, those who kept their heads
above water were impure.
Historical Roots
• 400 B.C.- Hippocrates declared abnormal
behavior had physical causes.
• He taught symptoms of mental disorders
were a result of an imbalance among bodily
fluids (called humors)
The Four Humors
Humors
Blood
Origin
Heart
Choler (yellow Liver
bile)
Temperament
Sanguine
(cheerful)
Choleric
(angry)
Melancholer
(black bile)
Spleen
Melancholy
(depressed)
Phlegm
Brain
Phlegmatic
(sluggish)
Middle Ages
• Superstition eclipsed Hippocrates ideas
• Under the influence of the church,
physicians and clergy reverted back to
blaming abnormal behavior on demons,
witches, and the devil.
• The cure: torture, trephining, execution
The Medical Model
• Ab. Behavior is symptomatic of an
underlying illness.
• 2 version of model
*biological
*psychodynamic
The medical model
• Reemerged (from Hippocrates ideas) in the
late 18th century
• Diseases of the mind are like any other
disease
• Mental diseases have specific causes and
therefore must have specific treatments
How did this change view of
mental illnesses?
• Torture, executions, etc.. No longer made
sense
• Implemented asylums for the insaneinitially very therapeutic, later became
overcrowded and used as human
storehouses
Biological Version
• Ab. behavior reflects biological or
biochemical problems
• Term- mental illness
• Today- abnormalities in neurotransmitters,
the chemical that “conduct’ messages from
one cell in the nervous system to another.
continued
• Syndrome- a cluster or group of symptoms
suggestive of a particular order.
• Each mental illness presumably has specific
outcome and response to appropriate
therapy.
• DNA
continued
• Major advance over demonological
perspective—compassion over hatred
• Problem- mental hospital not always best
“cure”
• Today- receive treatment while staying in
society
Psychodynamic (Freud)Version
• Neuroses(neurotic behavior)- groups of
disorders theorized to stem from
unconscious conflict
• Abnormal behavior is a symptom of
unconscious childhood conflict
continued
• Psychosis- major disorder in which a
person lacks insight and has difficulty
meeting the demands of daily life and
maintaining contact with reality.
• Cure- resolve unconscious conflicts
Criticism of the medical
approach
• Too much reliance on doctor
• Patients became too passive/dependent on
doctor and/or drug treatments
• Little encouragement for the patient to take
part in ‘getting better”
Learning Perspectives
• Ab. Behavior may be caused by the fact that
one never got the chance to observe
“normal” behaviors and interactions.
• Inconsistent punishments
• Subculture reinforces behavior that is not
accepted by majority of population.
The Cognitive Perspective
• Ab. behavior caused by disturbances in how
one inputs, stores,manipulates, and retrieves
info.
• Disturbances caused by blocking input,
faulty storage, retrieval, or manipulation
Social-Cognitive-Behavioral
Perspective
• The alternative to the medical model that
view psychological disorders as a
combination of the social, cognitive, and
behavioral perspective.