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Notes on Individual and Abnormal Psychology
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Individual and Abnormal PsychologyPsychopathology: ‘illness of the mind’, the pattern of behaviour
Abnormal psychology: Study of abnormal behaviour
Why do we need to define disorders?
• Nomenclature: naming system
• Consensus: everyone in agreement
• Communication: makes it easier for professionals to communicate
• Organisation: easier to access information
• Research purposes
• Treatments
- Szasz (1974) - Argued that illness affects the body, not the mind
- Dammann (1997) - You cannot draw a sharp distinction between
physical and mental illness.
Defining abnormality: ‘HIDES’
Help-seeking
Irrationality/dangerousness
Deviance
Emotional distress
Significant impairment
Rosenhan and Seligmann (1989): 7 features of abnormality:
1. Suffering
- However: some conditions are abnormal but no suffering (e.g.
bipolar disorder)
- Suffering is commonplace (e.g. grief/pain reactions)
2. Maladaptiveness (behaviours that stop you adapting to different
circumstances)
- The more extreme the maladaptive behaviour the more abnormal
(e.g. OCD, phobias)
- However, there is a lot of grey area
3. Vivid/unconventional behaviour
4. Unpredictability/loss of control
- How in control of their behaviour are they?
,5. Irrationality/incomprehensibility
- For example, unforeseen outbursts of screaming
6. Observer discomfort
- Societal rules broken, e.g. personal space
7. Violation of moral standards
Comer (2001): 4 D’s:
• Deviance
• Distress
• Dysfunction
• Danger (to self and others)
What is normal?
Social deviation -
• Prostitution violates social norms, but is it ‘abnormal’?
• Eating dog in Korea was legal until 1988, abnormal? - cultural
bounds mean abnormality could be defined differently depending on
where in the world you are.
• Shifts in social norms - homosexual acts were once illegal, but
were they/are they abnormal?
• Phobia of a lift IS abnormal - However, doesn’t violate social norms
and doesn’t harm anyone
Abnormality is a social construct:
Affected by:
• Value judgements
• Political agendas
• Personal prejudice
Therefore, there is no sufficient criteria for abnormal behaviour
, A brief history of mental illness
Historical perspectives:
Trephination: Procedure to release evil spirits
Edwin Smith papyrus:
- From Egypt, dated 17th century BC
- First time in history the brain is described as the site on mental
functions.
- Includes detailed descriptions of treatments of wound and surgical
operations.
Ebers papyrus:
- 15th century BC
- Treatment and magic to cure disease with no known cause
- More extensive than Edwin Smith papyrus
- Includes section on psychiatry - describes symptoms similar to
depression.
Hippocrates: 4 humours:
• Melancholia; Too much ‘black bile’ in blood, feeling
thoughtful/depressed.
• Sanguine: feeling optimistic and cheerful
• Phlegmatic: Consistant, relaxed, compassionate
• Choleric: Energetic, passionate, bad tempered
Avicenna (980-1037): Wrote canon of medicine - Medical encyclopaedia
European movement:
• Paracelsus (1490-1541)
- Madness is a disease
- He believed in astral influences (lunatic from moon etc.)
• Johan Weyer (1515-1588)
- Madness has a medical cure
- Founder of modern psychopathology
- Widely criticised by the church for publishing that witches were
mentally ill not cursed/possessed
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