Ch 1 abnormal psych notes PDF

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Chapter 1 notes from "Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology" textbook. Teacher is Jan Mendoza from Golden West College. ...

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Chapter 1 Abnormal Psychology: Past and Present Chapter 1.1 introduction - Psychological abnormality is very hard to define - Many definitions have been proposed over the years but none have had total acceptance - The Four D’s : Deviance, distress, dysfunction, and danger Deviance - Each society establishes norms : stated and unstated rules for proper conduct - Behavior that breaks legal norms is considered to be criminal - Behavior, thoughts, and emotions that break norms of psychological functioning are called abnormal - A society’s norms grow from its particular culture- its history, values, institutions, habits, skills, technology, and the arts. - A society’s values may change over time, causing its views of what is psychologically abnormal to change as well Distress - According to many clinical theorists, behavior, ideas, or emotions usually have to cause distress before they can be labeled abnormal - The feelings of distress must always be present before a person's functioning can be considered abnormal? Not necessarily, some people who function abnormally maintain a positive frame of mind. Dysfunction - Abnormal behavior tends to be dysfunctional. Interferes with daily functioning. - Upsets, distracts, or confuses people that they cannot care for themselves properly, participate in ordinary social interactions, or work productively Danger - The ultimate psychological dysfunction is behavior that becomes dangerous to oneself or others - Individuals whose behavior is consistently careless, hostile, or confused may be placing themselves or those around them at risk - Actually the exception not the rule - Most people struggling with anxiety, depression, and even bizarre thinking pose no immediate danger to themselves or to anyone else

The Elusive Nature of Abnormality - Efforts to define psychological abnormality typically raise as many questions as they answer - A society selects general criteria for defining abnormality and then uses those criteria to judge particular cases - Thomas Szasz, a clinical theorist, found the concept of mental illness to be invalid, a myth - According to Szasz, the deviations that society calls abnormal are simply “problems in living”, not signs of something wrong with one person - We may be unable to apply our definition consistently -

Alcohol abuse among college students is familiar but society may fail to recognize that it is deviant, distressful, dysfunctional, and dangerous Interferes with their personal and academic lives, causes them great discomfort, jeopardizes their health, and often endangers them and the people around them Often unnoticed and undiagnosed Alcohol is a subculture that is easy to overlook because it became normal behavior

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Society has trouble separating an abnormality that requires intervention from an eccentricity, which is an unusual pattern with which others have no right to interfere

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Difference between eccentric and abnormal Definition of eccentric: as a person who deviates from common behavior patterns or displays odd or whimsical behavior. Characteristics of eccentrics: nonconformity, creativity, strong curiosity, idealism, extreme hobbies and interests, and outspokenness

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Conclusions - We agree to define psychological abnormalities as patterns of functioning that are deviant, distressful, dysfunctional, and sometimes dangerous. We should be clear that these criteria are often vague and subjective. Summing up What is psychological abnormality? - Abnormal functioning is generally considered to be deviant, distressful, dysfunctional, and dangerous - Because behavior must also be considered in the context in which it occurs, however, the concept of abnormality depends on the norms and values of the society in question

Chapter 1.2 What is Psychological abnormality? What is treatment? - Treatment or therapy - Treatment: a systematic procedure designed to help change abnormal behavior into more normal behavior, also called therapy - Clinical treatment is surrounded by conflict and, at times, confusion. Some clinicians view abnormality as an illness and so consider therapy a procedure that helps cure the illness. - Others see abnormality as a problem in living and therapists as teachers of more functional behavior and thought. - Clinicians even differ on what to call the person who receives therapy: those who see abnormality as an illness speak of the “patient”, while those who view it as a problem in living refer to the “client”. Both terms are common Summing up What is treatment? Therapy is a systematic process for helping people overcome their psychological difficulties. It typically requires a patient, a therapist, and a series of therapeutic contacts.

Learning curve - Ben Franklin and other eccentrics enjoy their behavior - Jerome franks key features of therapy apply: ALL FORMS OF THERAPY - A sufferer who seeks relief from the healer. - A trained, socially accepted healer , whose expertise is accepted by the sufferer and his or her social group. - A series of contacts  between the healer and the sufferer, through which the healer … tries to produce certain changes in the sufferer’s emotional state, attitudes, and behavior. According to the textbook, this alone does NOT indicate abnormality - Dysfunction In any given year, as many as _____ percent of the adults and _____ percent of children and adolescents in the United States display serious psychological disturbances and are in need of clinical treatment. - 30;19

Some clinicians consider this to be the most important criterion to establish abnormality: -

Distress

Chapter 1.3 How was Abnormality viewed and treated in the past? -

In a given year, as many as 30 percent of adults and 19 percent of the children and adolescents in the US display serious psychological disturbances and are in need of clinical treatment

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Modern world is responsible due to the rapid technological advances, loss of employment, threats of terriosm, decline in religious, family, or other support systems

Ancient views and treatments - Historians who have examined the unearthed bones, artwork, and other stuff of ancient societies have concluded that these societies probably regarded abnormal behavior as the work of evil spirits - People in prehistoric societies believed that all events around and within them resulted from the actions of magical, sometimes sinister, beings who controlled the world - Abnormal behavior was typically interpreted as a victory by evil spirits, and the cure for such behavior was to force the demons from a victim's body - Trephination: in which a stone instrument, or trephine, was used to cut away a circular section of the skull - Historians have concluded that this early operation was performed as a treatment for severe abnormal behavior- either hallucinations, in which people saw or heard things not actually present, or melancholia, characterized by extreme sadness and immobility. - The purpose of opening the skull was to release the evil spirits that were supposedly causing the problem -

Later societies also explained that abnormal behavior by pointing to possession by demons Egyptian, chinese, and hebrew writings all account for psychological deviance

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The treatment for abnormality in these early societies was often exorcism. This idea was to coax the evil spirits to leave or to make the person's body an uncomfortable place in which to live

Greek and Roman Views and Treatments - When the greek and roman civilization thrived, philosophers and physicians often offered different explanations and treatments for abnormal behaviors - Hippocrates often called the father of modern medicine, taught the illnesses had natural causes - He saw abnormal behavior as a disease arising from internal physical problems - He believed that some form of brain pathology was the culprit and that is resulted- like all other forms of disease, in his view- from an imbalance of four fluids, or humors, that flowed through the body: yellow bile, black bile, blood, and phlegm. - An excess of yellow bile, for example, cause mania, a state of frenzied activity; an excess of black bile was the source of melancholia, a condition marked by unshakable sadness -

To treat psychological dysfunction, Hippocrates sought to correct the underlying physical pathology He focused on internal causes for abnormal behavior was shared by the great greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle and by influential Greek and roman physicians

Europe in the Middle Ages: Demonology Returns - The views of Greek and Roman physicians and scholars were not enough to shake ordinary peoples belief in demons - And with the decline of rome, demonological views and practices became popular once again. Growing distrust in science spread throughout Europe - The church rejected scientific forms of investigation and it controlled all education - Religious beliefs which were highly superstitious and demonological, came to dominate all aspects of life - Deviant behavior, particularly psychological abnormality, was seen as evidence of satan's influence -

There were outbreaks of mass madness, on which large numbers of people apparently shared absurd false beliefs and imagined sights or sounds Tarantism: groups of people would suddenly start to jump, dance, and go into convulsions. All were convinced that they had been bitten and possessed by a

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wolf spider, now called tarantula, and they sought to cure their disorder by performing a dance called the tarantella In another form of madness, lycanthropy, people thought they were possessed by wolves or other animals. They acted wolflike and imagined that fur was growing all over their bodies Exorcisms were revived to rid the person's body of the devil that possessed it It wasn't until the Middle Ages drew to a close that demonology and its methods began to lose favor towns throughout Europe grew into cities and government officials gained more power and took over nonreligious activities

The Renaissance and the Rise of Asylums - Demonological views continued to decline - German physician Johann Weyer, the first physician to specialize in mental illness, believed that the mind is as susceptible to sickness as the body was - He is now considered the founder of the modern study of psychopathology - The care of people with mental disorders continued to improve in this atmosphere - In Gheel in Belgium, people came from all over the world and this formed the first “colony” of mental patients - Gheel was the forerunner of today's community mental health programs. Many patients still live in foster homes there, interacting with residents, until they recover -

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Unfortunately, these improvements in care began to fade by the mid sixteenth century Asylums: institutions whose primary purpose was to care for people with mental illnesses. These institutions were begun with the intention that they would provide good care The asylums started to overflow and became prisons where patients were held in filthy conditions and treated horribly

The Nineteenth Century: Reform and Moral Treatment - As 1800 approached, the treatment of people with mental disorders began to improve once again - - La Bicetre, an asylum in Paris for male patients, as the first site of asylum reform - In 1793, during the French Rev. Philippe Pinel was named the chief physician there

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He argued that the patients needed to be treated with kindness and sympathy He allowed them to move freely about the hospital grounds; replaced dark dungeons with sunny airy rooms, offered support and advice His approach proved success Patients who were previously locked away were let out and made great strides in the positive direction At the same time as Pinel, a similar thing was happening in Northern England by William Tuke He founded the York treatment, a rural estate where about 30 mental patients lived as guests in quiet country houses and were treated with a combo of rest, talk, prayer, and manual work

The Spread of Moral Treatment - The methods of Pinel and Turk, called moral treatment because they emphasized moral guidance and humane and respectful techniques, caught on throughout Europe and the US - The person most responsible for the early spread of moral treatment in the US was Benjamin Rush - Ben Rush was a physician at Pennsylvania Hospital who is now considered the father of American psychiatry - He developed humane approaches to treatment - For example, he required intelligent and caring staff -

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Dorothea Dix who made humane care a public and political concern in the US In a short time she went from state legislature to state legislature and to congress, speaking of the horrors she had observed at asylums and calling for reform Her campaign led to greater laws and government funding to improve the treatment of people with mental disorders Each state was made responsible for developing effective public mental hospitals, or state hospitals, all of which were intended to offer moral treatment. Similar hospitals were established throughout Europe

The Decline Moral Treatment - The new laws and such was a success but then there was a decline - Mental hospitals multiplied, severe money and staffing shortages developed, recovery rates declined, and overcrowding in the hospitals became a major problem

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The public saw them as strange and dangerous

The Early Twentieth Century: The Somatogenic and Psychogenic Perspectives - Two opposing perspectives emerged and began to compare for the attention of clinicians: the somatogenic perspective and psychogenic perspective The Somatogenic Perspective - The view that abnormal psychological functioning has physical causes - Emil Kraepline, published an influential textbook arguing that physical factors, such as fatigue, are responsible for mental dysfunction - He also developed the first modern system for classifying abnormal behaviors, listing their physical causes and discussing their expected course - There were other discoveries that led to the rise of this perspective - Syphilis, led to general paresis, an irreversible disorder with both mental symptoms such as delusions of grandeur and physical ones like paralysis - The German neurologist Richard Von Kraftt-Ebing injected matter from syphilis sores into patients suffering from general paresis and found that none of the patients developed symptoms of syphilis -

Physicians tried tooth extraction, tonsillectomy, hydrotherapy (alternating hot and cold bath), and lobotomy, a surgical cutting of certain nerve fibers in the brain Eugenic sterilization, the elimination (through medical or other means) of the ability of individuals to reproduce

The Psychogenic Perspective - The view that the chief causes of abnormal functioning are psychological - Hypnotism is a procedure in which a person is placed in a trance-like mental state during which he or she becomes extremely suggestible - Used to help treat psychological disorders as far back as 1778, when an Austrian physician named Friedrich Anton Mesmer established a clinic in Paris - His patients suffered hysterical disorders, mysterious bodily ailments that had no apparents physical basis - It was not until years later researchers had the courage to investigate his procedure, later called hypnotism and its effects on hysterical disorders -

In France there were two physicians experimenting that hysterical disorders could actually be induced in otherwise normal people while they were under the influence of hypnosis

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Hippolyte-Marie Bernheim and Ambrose-Auguste Liebault The physicians could make normal people experience deafness, paralysis, blindness, or numbness by means of hypnotic suggestion- and they could remove these artificial symptoms by the same means They established that a mental process- hypnotic suggestion- would both cause and cure even a physical dysfunction Leading scientists concluded that hysterical disorders were largely psychological in origin, and the psychogenic perspective rose in popularity Among those who studied the effects of hypnotism on hysterical disorders was Joesf Breuer of Vienna He discovered his patients sometimes awoke free of hysterical symptoms after speaking candidly under hypnosis about past upsetting events He joined his work with another physician Sigmund Freud Freud’s work eventually led him to develop the theory of psychoanalysis, which holds that many forms of abnormal and normal psychological functioning are psychogenic Freud believed that unconscious psychological processes are at the root of such functioning He also developed the technique of psychoanalysis, a form of discussion in which clinicians help troubled people gain insight into their unconscious psychological processes Help patients overcome their psychological problems

Chapter 1.4 Recent Decades and Current Trends - Surveys have found that 43 percent of respondents believe that people bring mental disorders on themselves, 31 percent consider such disorders to be a sign of personal weakness, and 35 percent believe the disorders are caused by sinful behavior - There has been many changes over the past 60 years in the ways clinicians understand and treat abnormal functioning - There are a lot of theories and types of treatment, more research studies, more information, and perhaps because of those increases- more disagreements about abnormal functioning today than any in the past

How are People with Severe Disturbances Cared for? - In the 1950’s, researchers discovered a number of new psychotropic medications- drugs that primarily affect the brain and reduce many symptoms of mental dysfunction - They included the first antidepressant drugs, which correct extremely confused and distorted thinking - Antidepressant drugs which lift the mood of depressed people - Antianxiety drugs which reduce tension and worry - Patients show improvement -

Since the discovery of these medications, mental health professionals in most of the developed nations of the world have followed a policy of deinstitutionalization, releasing hundreds of thousands of patients from public mental hospitals

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Outpatient care has now become the primary mode of treatment for people with severe psychological disturbances- a philosophy called the community health approach

How are People with Less Severe Disturbances treated? - Been more positive than that for people with severe disturbances - Outpatient care has continued to be the preferred mode of treatment for them, and the number and types of facilities that offer such care have expanded to meet the need -

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Before the 1950s almost all outpatient care took the form of private psychotherapy, in which individuals meet with a self employed therapist for counseling services Since the 1950s most health insurance plans have expanded coverage to include private psychotherapy, also less expensive options

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20 percent of clients enter therapy because of milder problems- martial, job, family, school, or community relationships

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Yet another change in outpatient care since the 50s has been the development of programs devoted to specific psychological problems We have specific centers for individual problems

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A Growing Emphasis on Preventing Disorders and Promoting Mental Health - Prevention: a key feature of community mental health programs that seek to prevent or minimize psychological disorders - Many programs try to correct social problems (poverty or violence in the community) and to help individuals who are at risk for developing emotional problems - Not always successful but shows promise -

Positive psychology: the study and promotion of posit...