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SUMMARY
Book: ‘Abnormal Psychology’
Author(s): Ronald J. Comer
Edition: 9
Summarized by: L. C. Claassen
Dear student,
Please keep in mind that this is a SUMMARY. This work contains merely the MAIN topics
and ideas of the book. It is a simplified version of the real work, so it does not contain every
single concept. In order to fully grasp the material, I strongly advise you to READ THE
BOOK.
If you read the book, you will come across all sorts of explanations and examples which
clarify the topics in the most sophisticated way possible. You will be far better able to
remember all the information that was given to you if you understand it FULLY.
Then again, you are a student, and students have all sorts of other responsibilities. There are
other courses that you must study for and there are other assignments that you must make. Of
course, at times, it is equally important to take a break and not think about school for a while
in order to rest and regain your focus. Next to all this, you probably have a social life as well.
It is completely understandable if you choose to make a compromise for your time by only
studying a summary.
If that is the case, I hope that my summary will help you on your way to learn the material
and pass the exam. I have tried my best to gather all the main information and to write it
down in an understandable way. However, I would recommend you to at least compare
different summaries, and take a look at the lecture material, so that you DO NOT MISS OUT
on any important information. I am a learning student myself, so I make mistakes. This means
that my summary is NOT an end-all be-all solution for passing your exam. And NEITHER is
any other summary that you may use. Nevertheless, I hope that it is of use to you and I wish
you the best of luck in your academic career.
- Lauran
,CHAPTER 1: ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY: PAST AND PRESENT
Abnormality
- Abnormal psychology: the scientific study of abnormal behavior in order to understand and
change the abnormal functioning. The definition of abnormality usually includes the four
D’s:
1. Deviant: different from the norms (culturally determined ideas/rules on how to
behave properly).
2. Distressing: unpleasant to the person.
3. Dysfunctional: interfering with daily life.
4. Dangerous: the possibility for someone to harm themselves or others.
It may be hard to determine abnormality using the four D’s, since particular instances do not
always meet all four criteria, and since these criteria are often subjective.
Treatment
- Treatment or therapy: procedures that change abnormal behavior to normal behavior. All
forms of therapy have the following three features:
1. There is a sufferer in need of a healer.
2. There is a healer who is trained in procedures of healing and who is accepted by the
sufferer to help him.
3. There is a series of contacts between the sufferer and the healer in which the healer
tries to change the sufferer’s emotions, attitudes and behavior.
Different therapists do not agree with each other on which form of treatment to use and when
treatment is successful or a failure. This makes the field of clinical psychology quite chaotic.
The past
- In the past, people thought that abnormal behavior was the doing of evil spirits. During the
stone age, a type of operation called trephination was conducted. During the operation,
circular sections of the skull were cut out with a stone, a so-called trephine, to let evil spirits
out of the head.
- Egyptian, Chinese and Hebrew societies all practiced forms of exorcism, in which evil
spirits were expelled out of the body.
- Hippocrates, an ancient Greek doctor, came up with the theory that illness would be the
result of an imbalance in bodily fluids, so-called humors. The imbalance could be cured by
things such as changing your diet or lifestyle, or by letting out blood of the body.
- During the Middle Ages, the belief that abnormal behavior was caused by evil spirits
returned. The Renaissance eventually led to the understanding that abnormal behavior was not
the doing of these spirits. Johann Weyer, a German physician, believed that the mind could
,get sick just as the body could. He is now considered as the founding father of
psychopathology.
- In the sixteenth century, people with mental illnesses would go to asylums, special buildings
where people would be treated. However, with an excess of patients, they soon became
prison-like institutions where people lived under terrible conditions.
- Moral treatment emerged in the nineteenth century. These were treatment forms that
consisted humane and respectful techniques and took a good living environment into account.
Benjamin Rush, an American physician, is considered the most influential person in
spreading this form of treatment and is considered the founder of American psychiatry.
School teacher Dorothea Dix made humane care a political concern, which eventually led to
the development of state hospitals: mental hospitals for which the state was responsible.
Two perspectives
- The twentieth century gave way for two competing perspectives on clinical psychology:
1. Somatogenic perspective: abnormal functioning is caused by the physical.
2. Psychogenic perspective: abnormal functioning is caused by the psychological.
Different trends in modern psychology
- Psychotropic medications: drugs that help reduce mental dysfunctioning. They are usually
used to treat people with severe disturbances. The drugs come in three types:
1. Antipsychotic drugs: correct distorted thinking.
2. Antidepressant drugs: reduce depression and lift the mood.
3. Antianxiety drugs: reduce anxiety and tension.
The development of these drugs allowed for people with mental disorders to be treated
outside of public mental hospitals, leading them to be released. The release of these patients is
called deinstitutionalization.
- Private psychotherapy: an individual receives personal counseling services from a
psychotherapist. This is usually used to treat people with less severe disturbances.
- A lot of today’s focus lies on the prevention of psychological disorders rather than on the
healing. Prevention programs have been influenced by the movement of positive psychology:
studying and enhancing positive feelings in people.
- Multicultural psychology: the study of factors like culture, race and gender and how they
affect human behavior and thought.
- Managed care programs: programs in which insurance companies determine factors of
treatment such as which therapists the client may choose from and how many sessions a client
may receive.
- In today’s psychological practice there is not a single viewpoint that dominates the field.
Multiple perspectives such as the biological and the sociocultural perspective now coexist in
,the field of psychology. Recently, technology has also had a great impact on clinical practice.
An example is cybertherapy: therapy offered by the help of computers.
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH IN ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
Clinical research
- Nomothetic understanding: to seek understanding in terms of natural laws or principles. In
clinical psychology, researchers want to develop a general nomothetic understanding by
trying to find the nature of abnormality. They do this by using the scientific method:
collecting and evaluating information through careful observations.
- Researchers typically depend on three types of investigation:
1. Case study: studying a single individual in detail for an extended period of time.
2. Correlational method: find a correlation that holds for many individuals.
3. Experimental method: find a causal relationship that holds for many individuals.
Case studies
- The strengths of case studies are that they can be helpful for developing new ideas or
therapeutic techniques, but also for supporting or challenging them. Case studies are also
useful for studying unusual problems that do not occur very often.
- The limitations of case studies are that they are reported by subjective observers who are
prone to bias. This means that you cannot be certain which events contributed to the situation
and which do not. When a study is able to rule out all causes except for one, it is said to have
internal validity. Case studies lack this internal validity. Another problem is that case studies
cannot be generalized to the population, something which is called external validity. Case
studies lack external validity because we can never be certain that the root of the problem of a
single case study also holds for all other similar cases.
The correlational method
- Correlation: how much two characteristics vary along with each other (the degree to which
one variable changes when the other changes). Correlations can be plotted in a graph with one
variable on the horizontal axis and one on the vertical axis with individual dots representing
all the measured cases. The direction of the line that can be drawn on the basis of these dots
shows the relationship between the two variables, and the closer the dots are to the line, the
stronger that relationship is.
- With the help of statistical analysis, researchers can determine what the chances are that a
measured correlation has occurred by mere chance, or whether it reflects a real correlation.
Usually, when there is a less than 5 percent probability that the correlation has occurred by
chance, it is considered statistically significant; the correlation reflects the larger population.
- A strength of the correlational method is that it possesses high external validity; the results
of the research generalize to the public.
,- A limitation of the correlational method is that it lacks internal validity; the correlation
merely shows that there is a relationship, but it does not explain that relationship, so a single
cause cannot be determined.
- An epidemiological study is a form of a correlational study. It investigates the incidence
(the number of new cases that emerge during a certain period) and prevalence (the total
number of cases during a certain period) of a disorder in a population.
- In a longitudinal study, another type of correlational study, researchers observe and follow
the same individuals for an extended period of time.
The experimental method
- An experiment is a form of research in which one variable is manipulated and another
variable is observed. The variable that is manipulated is called the independent variable and
the observed value is called the dependent variable. Experiments give us an idea about a
causal relationship.
- Confounds: additional variables apart from the independent variable that have an effect on
the dependent variable. In order to determine a single cause of an effect, confounds must be
eliminated. This can be done by creating a control group: a group that is not exposed to the
independent variable (as opposed to the experimental group which is exposed to the
independent variable). When the two groups are compared, the effect of the independent
variable can be determined by looking at the difference between the two groups.
- Random assignment: a selection procedure in which participants are as likely to be placed
into one group as into the other; they are randomly assigned to a group. Random assignment
prevents that one group differs from the other group (this is important because a difference
between the groups may be a confounding factor).
- A blind design is an experimental strategy in which individuals do not know whether they
are assigned to the experimental group or the control group. A blind design is used to avoid
bias; it can prevent participants from trying to please the experimenter by acting in a way they
think they should act. In a double-blind design the experimenters are also unaware which
group is the experimental group and which is the control group. This prevents the
experimenters from unintentionally affecting the participants to act in a certain way.
- Placebo therapy: a procedure in which a control group is given a placebo: a medicine or
procedure that looks and feels real but does not contain the key ingredients to cause an actual
effect. An effect may still occur however, solely because of the psychological reason that the
participant thinks it will occur: a placebo effect. When an effect occurs in the control group
due to the placebo, but an even bigger effect occurs in the experimental group, it can be said
that there is an actual causal effect apart from the placebo effect.
Alternative experimental designs
- Quasi-experiment or mixed design: an experiment without random assignment; existing
groups are used for the experimental and the control group (e.g. abused vs non-abused
children).
, - Natural experiment: natural causes are used as independent variables and researchers
observe the effects (e.g. studying the effects of a plane crash).
- Analogue experiment: experimenters produce abnormal-like behavior in participants and
then conduct experiments on them (e.g. exposing participants to negative events to induce a
depressed-like state).
- Single-subject experiment: one single participant is observed before and after a certain
manipulation (e.g. testing the effect of certain therapies on people with a very rare disease).
Ethics
- Institutional Review Boards (IRBs): committees at research facilities that review studies
based on ethics and human rights. An IRB decides whether a study can be carried out or
whether certain changes have to be made first in order to protect the safety and rights of
humans and animals. Over the course of the study, the IRB monitors whether everything is
going according to acceptable norms. In general, IRBs work according to the following
guidelines:
1. Participants must enlist voluntarily.
2. Participants must be adequately informed before enlisting.
3. Participants can end their participation at any time.
4. The benefits of the study must outweigh the costs.
5. Participants are protected from harm (both physically and psychologically).
6. Participants must have access to information about the study.
7. The privacy of the participants is protected.
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