Chapter 1Abnormal Behavior in Historical Context Amber Gilewski

Tompkins Cortland Community College

What is a Psychological Disorder?

Psychological Dysfunction

Breakdown in cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning

Personal Distress

Difficulty performing appropriate and expected roles

Impairment is set in the context of a person’s background

Atypical or Not Culturally Expected Response

Reaction is outside cultural norms

Classroom Activity: Distinguishing Normal from Abnormal Behavior

Case # 1: Tom is uncomfortable riding escalators. As a result, Tom avoids using any escalator.

Case #2: Rachel has been caught urinating in the corner of her bedroom. Is her behavior abnormal?

Historical Ideas about Abnormal Behavior

Three Dominant Traditions

Supernatural – outside of ourselves

Biological – deals with body

Psychological – deals with mind

The Supernatural Tradition

Deviant Behavior as a Battle of “Good” vs. Evil Caused by demonic possession, witchcraft,

sorcery

Treatments included exorcism, torture, beatings, and crude surgeries

Enlightened view – natural and treatable

The Moon and the Stars

Paracelsus and lunacy

The Biological Tradition

Hippocrates: Abnormal Behavior as a Physical Disease

Hysteria “The Wandering Uterus”

Galen Extends Hippocrates Work

Humoral theory of mental illness

Treatments remained crude

The 19th Century

General Paresis (Syphilis) and the Biological Link With Madness

Pasteur discovered the cause – A bacterial microorganism

Led to penicillin as a successful treatment

John Grey, Dorthea Dix, & the reformers

Bolstered the view that mental illness = physical illness

The Development of Biological Treatments

Mental disorder treatment in 1930’s – insulin, ECT, brain surgery

Joseph Von Meduna – schizophrenia and epilepsy

Treatment of psychotic disorders in 1950’s – first effective medications

The Psychological Tradition

•Psychosocial – social/cultural factors

•The Rise of Moral Therapy – Pinel & Pussin (France), William Tuke (England), and Benjamin Rush (U.S.)

More humane treatment of institutionalized patients

Encouraged and reinforced social interaction

• Decline of moral therapy due to beliefs about brain pathology & increase in psychiatric patients

Psychoanalytic Theory Freudian Theory of the Structure and

Function of the Mind (Id, Ego, Superego)

Defense mechanisms (denial, displacement, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, repression, sublimation)

Neo-Freudians – Anna Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler

Humanistic Theory

Major Players

Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

Major Themes

That people are basically good

Humans strive toward self-actualization

Therapist conveys empathy and unconditional positive regard

The Behavioral Model Derived from a Scientific Approach to the

Study of Psychopathology

Classical Conditioning

(Pavlov; Watson)

John Wolpe – systematic desensitization

B.F. Skinner – operant conditioning