Abnormal Psychology - Chapter 1

Clinical Scientist(s)

People who do research

Clinical Practitioner(s)

People who apply their knowledge to helping other people

Deviance
Distress
Dysfunction
Danger

What makes someone's behavior abnormal?
Hint: 4 D's

Deviance

Statistical definition: different, extreme, unusual, even bizarre

Norms

All societies establish these rules for proper conduct

Criminal

When someone violates a legal norm they are considered:

Abnormal

When someone breaks the "normal psychological functioning" or deviates from what is typical they are considered:

Distress

Unpleasant and upsetting

Present

Feelings of distress are not necessarily always...

Disorders

Some conditions cause distress, but are clearly not...

Dysfunction

Interference with daily living and function (e.g. social, work, spiritual, emotional, cognitive, legal, financial)
The failure of our "mental mechanism" to function the way it was designed

Danger

Harmful, danger to oneself or to others (e.g. careless, reckless, hostile, confused)
Usually the "exception, not the rule

Environment
Stress

These two things can affect individual behavior (creating dysfunction)

Thomas Szasz

Believed mental illness is a myth
Problem in living, not something wrong with person (a normal response to an abnormal environment)
Felt involuntary commitment should not be allowed

Eccentricity

Unusual individual pattern that others have no right to interfere with
Usually know they are odd or unusual, but are not in distress

Treatment

Helps to change an abnormal behavior into a normal one

Therapy

A special way of helping people to overcome their psychological difficulties and problems

Trephination

Hole(s) drilled in skull with stone instrument to let out evil spirits
From stone age up to as recent as the 17th century

Exorcism

The coaxing out of evil spirits (by a shaman or priest)

Humor(s)

Yellow Bile
Black Bile
Blood
Phlegm

Yellow Bile

Hippocrates believed this caused "Frenzied Joy" (anxiety and irritability)

Black Bile

Hippocrates believed this caused depression

Hippocrates

He believed that mental illness had natural causes and foreshadowed the discovery of the biological components of mental disorders centuries before they were realized

Greek(s)
Roman(s)

These two cultures dominated treatment of mental illness from 500BC to 500AD

Church

This institution believed that any abnormal or deviant functioning was due to the influence of Satan

Tarantism

Groups of people would suddenly dance around and convulse
Mass hallucinations/delusions
Believed to be bitten by tarantula

St. Vitus' Dance

Another name for Tarantism

Lycanthropy

People thought they were possessed by wolves/animals (actually behaved by animals)

Johann Weyer

Argued that, like the body, the mind was susceptible to illness
Believed mental disorders were caused by illness, not demons
Founder of modern psychopathology

Gheel, Belgium

Community mental health program" of the 15th century
People came for psychic healing

Bethlem Hospital

Facility located in London (16th century)
Asylum (filthy, prison-like)
Tourists paid money to "gawk" at the mentally ill

Bedlam

Another name for Bethlem Hospital

Philippe Pinel

Father of scientific psychiatry
Advocated humane treatment, sympathy, and guidance in asylums
Removed physical restraints
Forbid cruel treatment

La Bicetre

Asylum in Paris
Patients were kept in inhumane conditions (literally chained)

William Tuke

Set up York Retreat (an asylum in a country house)
English Quaker who brought reforms to New England
Prayed, worked together, took walks, rested (many patients recovered and went home)

Benjamin Rush

Father of American Psychiatry
Wrote 1st American treatise on psychiatry
Established 1st medical course in psychiatry
Believed in human treatment
Believed in bloodletting & that stars influence the brain and cause disturbed behavior

Dorothea Dix

Massachusetts schoolteacher
Went to state legislatures and to Congress to call for reform

Late 19th/Early 20th Century

Century in which there was a reversal of moral treatment movement
Long term hospitalization became rule vs short term moral treatment and recovery
Hospitals multiplied, staff and money shortages, recovery rates declined
No help for poor foreign immigrants

Somatogenic Perspective

View that abnormal behavior has biological causes

Emil Kraepelin

Created diagnostic categories
Believed many common mental disorders are disorders of the brain
Studied manic-depression

Manic-depression

Dementia praecox

Richard von Kraftt-Ebing

German neurologist
Research led to theories that many mental disorders have physical roots
Most medical techniques he developed did not work (hydrotherapy, lobotomies, tonsillectomies, tooth extractions)
Discovered that syphilis led to general paresis

General Paresis

Irreversible brain disorder that included psych symptoms such as delusions

Psychogenic Approach

Late 19th century
Approach that believed the causes of abnormal functioning are psychological
"It's all in your head"
Hypnotism

Franz Joseph Gall

Believed bumps on skull could tell personality and intelligence
Brain areas do have certain functions, but he was inaccurate, but he was inaccurate (unfortunately, his predictions were used in criminal proceedings)

Phrenology

Use of bumps on skull to determine personality and intelligence

F Anton Mesmer

Studied hysterical disorders (paralysis with no biological cause)
Using darkened room and music, he'd appear and touch them with a special rod
Mesmerism

Mesmerism

Trance-like precursor to hypnosis

Hypnotic Suggestion

Bernheim and Liebault established this

Josef Breuer

Hypnotized patients - awoke without hysterical symptoms
Joined Sigmund Freud in the 1890s
Theory of psychoanalysis

Theory of Psychoanalysis

Theory that many forms of functioning are psychogenic

Cathartic Method

Having patients talk calmly about problems under hypnosis

Psychoanalysis

Therapists talk to clients to help them gain insight into their problems
"Talking treatment"
Outpatient therapy

Psychotropic

1950s medications that affected the brain and reduced symptoms
Anti-psychotic, antidepressant, and anti-anxiety drugs

1960(s)

Deinstitutionaliztion began in the...

Mental Illness and Homelessness

Major impact of deinstitutionalization

22 Million (1 in 8)

Today, this many Americans receive some sort of therapy

Variable

Characteristic or event that can vary (age, sex, race)

Hypothesis

Educated guess
What an experiment is designed to test

Case Study

Where a clinician observes and records an individual's current behavior, symptoms, or gathers past history

Goal

Describes a patient's problems and relates it to functioning and provides a theory about its causes
Helps to treat and better understand the patient

Correlational Method

Assesses the degree to which two or more events are associated (not caused)
Does not directly manipulate behavior

Positive Correlations

Likelihood that two variables occur together (i.e. as weight rises, blood pressure increases)

Negative Correlations

As value of one variable increases, the value of the other decreases (i.e. as activity increases, depression decreases)

Epidemiological Studies

Studies prevalence, incidence and consequence and often causation of mental disorders in a population

Incidence

Number of people who have acquired a disorder in a time period (usually a year)

Prevalence

Total number of people within a given population who suffer from a disorder

Longitudinal Studies

Research design in which one group of subjects is studied repeatedly at different ages

Experimental Method

One variable is manipulated and the effects on another variable are studied

Independent Variable

Factor manipulated

Dependent Variable

Factor observed/measured

Eliminate Variable

Variables that might influence the results (instead of independent variable)

Random Assignment

Everyone has an equal chance of being selected

Blind Design

Experimental Method including placebo

Bias

Subject may try to do this to the results by trying to please the experimenter

Placebo

Something that looks like a drug or therapy, but isn't

Double-Blind Experiment

Neither subject nor experimenter knows whether the pill or therapy is real or placebo