Understanding Mental Disorders and Stigma

Understanding Mental Disorders

• Determining why another person acts or feels a certain way is complex
• It's often difficult to understand our own feelings and behaviors
• Understanding normal behavior is challenging, understanding abnormal behavior is even more difficult

The Study of Psychopathology

• Psychopathology is the field concerned with the nature, development, and treatment of mental disorders
• This field is continually evolving with new discoveries
• Challenges include remaining objective, as human behavior is personal and powerfully affecting

The Stigma of Mental Illness

• Stigma refers to negative beliefs and attitudes towards groups considered different, like people with mental illness
• Stigma harms people with mental illness through:
  • Labeling them as different (e.g., "crazy")
  • Associating the label with negative traits (e.g., dangerous)
  • Creating an "us vs. them" mentality
  • Discriminating against them

Historical Perspectives on Mental Disorders

• Early explanations for mental disorders relied on supernatural, biological, and psychological factors

Early Demonology

• Before scientific inquiry, both natural and unnatural phenomena were attributed to supernatural causes
• Many early philosophers, theologians, and physicians believed that troubled minds reflected the displeasure of gods or possession by demons
• Exorcism was used as a treatment for demonic possession
  • Involved elaborate rituals, prayer, noisemaking, forcing the afflicted to drink unpleasant brews, and sometimes flogging or starvation

Early Biological Explanations

• Hippocrates, known as the father of modern medicine, separated medicine from superstition
• He believed mental disturbances had natural causes and should be treated like other illnesses
• Hippocrates considered the brain the organ of consciousness, intellectual life, and emotion, suggesting brain pathology caused mental disorders
• Hippocrates classified mental disorders into:
  • Mania
  • Melancholia
  • Phrenitis (brain fever)
• Hippocrates believed a balance of four humors (blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm) was essential for mental health
• He advocated for treatments like tranquillity, sobriety, and abstinence from sexual activity

Bethlehem and Other Early Asylums

• The Priory of St. Mary of Bethlehem, founded in 1243, became a hospital for those with mental illness
• Conditions were deplorable, with patients confined and treated cruelly
• The term "bedlam" (derived from Bethlehem Hospital), came to signify chaos and confusion
• The asylum became a tourist attraction, with people paying to view the patients
• Other institutions like the Lunatics Tower in Vienna also confined patients in view of the public

Medical Treatments for Mental Illness

• Confinement in hospitals did not always lead to better treatment
• Medical treatments were often crude and painful
• Benjamin Rush, a key figure in American psychiatry believed mental disorder was caused by excess blood in the brain and advocated for bloodletting
• Rush believed fear could cure mental illness, recommending scaring patients into believing they were dying

Philippe Pinel's Reforms

• Phillipe Pinel advocated for more humane treatment of people with mental illness in asylums
• Became head of La Bicêtre asylum in Paris during the French Revolution
• Found patients shackled to walls, with limited movement, and advocated for their release from chains

Stigma and Discrimination

• Discrimination against those with mental illness persists, despite advances in understanding
• Jack, a man with schizophrenia, was denied an apartment due to his condition, because the landlord believed he would be violent
• This misconception is common, despite research showing no increased violence risk for people with mental illness
• The history of mental illness treatment has contributed to stigma, with people often being brutalized and shunned

Importance of Studying Psychopathology

• Understanding the history of psychopathology helps us avoid past mistakes and highlights the evolution of understanding
• Contemporary approaches to treatment also require careful consideration, as past methods initially hailed as successes later fell into disrepute
• The search for causes of mental disorders is ongoing, historically with supernatural, biological, and psychological explanations