Psychology Chapter: Introduction to Abnormal Psychology

Introduction to Abnormal Psychology

• Abnormal psychology is a general branch in psychology that includes both psychopathology and clinical psychology.
• It studies abnormal ways of helping people who are affected by psychological disorders.

Branches of Psychology

• Psychopathology: deals with the systematic investigation of abnormal behavior.
• Clinical psychology: focuses on psychological knowledge and practice used in helping a person with abnormal behavior to find better coping and adjustment.
• Psychiatry: a branch of medicine dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of mental illnesses.

Timeline of Significant Events in Abnormal Psychology

• 400 BC: Hippocrates suggests that psychological disorders have both biological and psychological causes.
• 200 CE: Galen suggests that normal and abnormal behaviors are related to four bodily fluids or humors: Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic.
• 1300s: Superstition runs rampant, and mental disorders are blamed on demons and witches; exorcisms are performed to rid victims of evil spirits.
• 1400s: Enlightened view that insanity is caused by mental or emotional stress gains momentum, and depression and anxiety are again regarded by some as disorders.
• 1400-1800: Bloodletting and leeches are used to rid the body of unhealthy fluids and restore chemical balance.
• 1500s: Paracelsus suggests that the moon and the stars, not possession by the devil, affect people’s psychological functioning.
• 1793: Philippe Pinel introduces moral therapy and makes French mental institutions more humane.
• 1825-1875: Syphilis is differentiated from other types of psychosis in that it is caused by a specific bacterium; ultimately, penicillin is found to cure syphilis.
• 1848: Dorothea Dix successfully campaigns for more human treatment in US mental institutions.
• 1854: John P. Grey believes that insanity is the result of physical causes, thus de-emphasizing psychological treatments.
• 1870: Louis Pasteur develops his germ theory of disease, which helps identify the bacterium that causes syphilis.
• 1895: Josef Breuer treats the “hysterical” Anna O., leading to Freud’s development of Psychoanalytic Theory.
• 1900: Sigmund Freud publishes “The Interpretation of Dreams”
• 1904: Ivan Pavlov receives the Nobel Prize for his work on the physiology of digestion, which leads him to identify conditioned reflexes in dogs.
• 1913: Emil Kraepelin classifies various psychological disorders from a biological point of view and publishes work on diagnosis.
• 1920: John B. Watson experiments with conditioned fear in Little Albert, using a white rat.
• 1930: Insulin shock therapy, electric shock treatments, and brain surgery begin to be used to treat psychopathology.
• 1938: B.F. Skinner publishes “The Behavior of Organisms,” which describes the principles of operant conditioning.
• 1943: The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is published.
• 1946: Anna Freud publishes “Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense”
• 1950: The first effective drugs for severe psychotic disorders are developed, and humanistic psychology gains acceptance.
• 1952: The first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-I) is published.
• 1958: Joseph Wolpe effectively treats patients with phobias using systematic desensitization based on principles of behavioral science.
• 1990s: Increasingly sophisticated research methods are developed, and no one influence – biological or environmental – is found to cause psychological disorders in isolation from the other.

Definition of Normality and Abnormality

• Failure in life tasks or inability to cope with society
• Behavior that leads to unhappiness rather than self-fulfillment and limits one’s ability to function in expected roles or to adapt to one’s environments.
• Significant personal distress caused by troublesome emotions, such as anxiety, fear, or depression.
• Faulty perceptions or interpretations of reality

Mental Health and Mental Disorders

• Mental health: a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and can contribute to his or her community.
• Mental disorder: a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.

Models Explaining Abnormal Behavior

• Traditional models:
  • Spiritistic model: abnormal behavior is the product of remote or supernatural forces.
  • Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches’ Hammer): presents a comprehensive theory of behavior and is the standard guide to the diagnosis, behavior, trial, and punishment of witches for two centuries.
  • Philippe Pinel: father of modern psychiatry, instrumental in the development of a more humane psychological approach to the care of psychiatric patients.
• Medical model: abnormal behavior is the result of some malfunctioning within the body.