Class notes
Psy 254 Summarized Notes
- Course
- Psy 254
- Institution
- University Of Rhode Island
This is a comprehensive and detailed summarized notes that covers chapter 1-7,for Psy 254. *Essential Study Material!!
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9/11/20: Chapter 1What is abnormal behavior?
● Problems in thoughts, feelings, and behavior vary from normal to abnormal
○ No clear dividing line exists between normal variations in thoughts, emotions, and
behaviors
● Difficult to determine when behaviors, thoughts, and feelings become unusual,
distressing, functionally impairing, or dangerous-- key determinants of abnormality
● The continuum model of abnormality applies to all the disorders discussed
Cultural Norms
Play large roles in defining abnormality
● Cultures have rules for what is acceptable versus unacceptable
○ For example, Gender-role expectations
● Social control
Cultural relativism: There are no universal standards or rules for labeling and behavior
abnormal
● What is considered abnormal in one culture may be considered normal in another
Fours Ds of Abnormality
Judgement of abnormality influenced interplay of “the four Ds”
“THE FOUR DS”
Deviance → different, extreme, unusual, perhaps even bizarre
● From what?
○ From behaviors, thoughts, and emotions that differ markedly from a
society’s idea about proper functioning
○ From social media
○ Stated and unstated rules for proper conduct
○ Examples? People wearing face masks years ago
Judgements of abnormality vary from society to society as norms grow from a particular culture
● They also depend on specific circumstances
Distress → unpleasant and upsetting to the person
● According to many clinical theorists, behavior, ideas, or emotions usually have to
cause distress before they can be labeled abnormal
○ Not always the case
, Dysfunction → interfering with the person’s ability to conduct daily activities in a
constructive way
● Abnormal behavior tends to be dysfunctional - it interferes with daily functioning
● Culture plays a role in the definition of abnormality
● Examples? Drinking all day, social isolation
Danger → posing a risk
● Abnormal behavior may become dangerous to oneself or others
○ Behavior may be constantly careless, hostile, or confused
● Although often cited as a feature of psychological abnormality, research suggests
that dangerousness is the exception rather than the rule
→ Together make up mental health professional’s definition of behaviors or feelings as
abnormal or maladaptive
→ Subjective judgements are still made
What is Treatment?
● Once clinicians decide that a person is suffering from abnormality, they seek to treat it
● Treatment, or therapy, is a procedure designed to change abnormal behavior into more
normal behavior
● All forms of therapy have three essential features:
○ A sufferer who seeks relief from the healer
○ A trained, social accepted healer, whose expertise is accepted by the sufferer and
his other 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
How was Abnormality Viewed and Treated in the Past?
● Many present-day ideas and treatments have roots in the past
Ancient Views and Treatment
Prehistoric times: Supernatural causes of abnormal behavior
● Treat via exorcism or trephination in which sections of the skull are drilled or cut away to
allow evil spirits to go out of the body
Ancient China: Abnormal behavior caused by imbalance of positive (yang) an negative (yin)
focuses in body
, ● Emotions controlled by internal organs
● Evil winds/ ghosts bewitched people influencing behavior (Taosit/ Buddist view)
Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Biological causes of abnormal behavior, rejected supernatural
causes
● Diseases result from imbalances in the body’s essential humors
● Yellow bile, black bile, blood, phlegm, (e.g too much black bile = depression, too much
yellow bile = mania)
● Suggested treatments attempted to “rebalance”
Medieval Views and Treatments
● Abnormal behavior caused by severe emotional shock and physical illness and injury
● Many who practiced witchcraft may have been mentally ill
● Frequent reports of psychic epidemics
○ Large numbers of people engaging in unusual behaviors that appear to have
psychological origin
○ Uncommon today but still occur
Treatment as confine to people to asylums where they were often mistreated
● Filth and confinement, chained to wall and locked in boxes
● Unethical/ harsh treatments
Moral treatment in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century
Mental hygiene movement:
● Proposed more humane treatments of mental illness
● People become ill when they are separated from nature
● Rapid socials changes create enough stress in some people that their mental illness results
Moral Treatment:
● Patients should be provided with humane conditions to live in
○ Failed to happen because there were not enough mental health workers to grow
staff the growing number of hospitals
○ Patients remained impaired or their condition worsened
9/14/20: Chapter 1
The Nineteenth Century: Reform and Moral Treatment
By the end of the nineteenth, several factors led to a reversal of the moral treatment movement:
● Money and staff shortages
● Declining recovery rates
● Overcrowding
● Emergence of prejudice
By the early years of the twentieth century: the moral treatment movement had ground to a halt;
long-term hospitalization became the rule once again
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