Reading Quiz

DSM IV

Rosenhan’s Findings

Life time prevalence

Compulsion

Why might data underestimate the number of males with a phobic disorder?

Diathesis-stress model

Background and Themes of Psychopathology

Introduction to Abnormal Psychology

Psych 309 Topic One 3

Introduction to Abnormal Psychology

• Defining Abnormal Psychology

• Historical Perspectives on Abnormal Behavior

Defining Abnormal Psychology

– Describing abnormal behavior– Explaining abnormal behavior– Predicting abnormal behavior– Modifying abnormal behavior

Historical perspectives on abnormal behavior

•Prehistoric

•Greco-Roman

•Middle Ages

•Humanist

•Reform

•Modern

Prehistoric and Ancient Beliefs

• Trephining: chipping away portions of the skull

• Exorcism: prayers, drugs, starvation

• Trephination todayhttp://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=trephination

Naturalistic explanations (Greeks and Romans)

•Hippocrates: brain pathology –Classification: mania, melancholia, and phrenitis

•Galen: role of brain and nervous system, codification of knowledge of anatomy

Four Humors

The Humors of Hippocrates

Reversion to Superstition (The Middle Ages)

• “Dark Ages” sinfulness

• Mass madness (thirteenth century):– Tarantism– lycanthropy

Witchcraft (fifteenth through seventeenth centuries)

• Related to church under attack

• Pope Innocent VIII’s papal decree (1484) – Malleus Maleficarum

• to identify and exterminate witches

– Although some of those persecuted may have been mentally ill, most were not

Rise of Humanism (the Renaissance)

•Emphasizes human welfare

•Johann Weyer challenges notion of witchcraft (1563)

http://images.google.com/images?q=johann+weyer&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Psych 309 Topic One 12

Reform Movements (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries)

– Moral treatment movements • Pinel in France

– Reformed conditions in French asylums

• Tuke (Quaker) in England– Retreat for mentally ill

• Rush, Dix, Beers in America– Humanitarian view of patients– Separate mentally ill from prison system– Reform treatment of mentally ill

• Zebulon R. Brockway – Elmira Penal System

Themes and Challenges in Psychopathology

•Biological and Psychological

–Bottom up and Top down

•Science and Practice

–Empirical approach and Human approach

•Developmental Changes

–Mental health and mental disorder change over the lifetime

•Treatment of Choice

–Level of treatment question

–Symptoms or causes

Defining Abnormal Behavior

• Abnormal behavior from a conceptual perspective

• Abnormal behavior from a practical perspective

• Abnormal behavior from an integrated perspective

• Abnormal behavior from a clinical perspective

• Hazards of Defining Abnormality

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Conceptual Definitions• Statistical deviation

– Based on frequency but no distinction of desirable and undesirable

• Deviation from ideal mental health– Self-actualization,

balance, resistance to stress

• Multicultural perspectives – Cultural universality v.

cultural relativism

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Practical Definitions

• Discomfort: physical or psychological• Deviance: hallucination, delusions• Dysfunction: potential v. performance

http://www.sdsmt.edu/online-courses/is/soc100/Deviance.jpg

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Integrated Definitions

• Factors in determining abnormality come from multiple perspectives – Society? (Szasz)– Individual– Mental health professional

• Harmful dysfunction (Wakefield, 1992)– Social norm defines harmful– Biological sciences define dysfunction

Surgeon General and DSM-IV-TR

• “a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress or disability or with a significantly increased risk of suffering”– Allows room for the various criteria and perspectives

on behavior– No precise line delineates normal from abnormal– Requires some recognizable pattern of abnormal

behavior

The Elements of Abnormality

• Suffering

• Maladaptiveness

• Irrationality

• Unpredictability and loss of control

• Rareness and unconventionality

• Observer discomfort

• Violation of standards

Hazards of Defining Abnormality

• Observers Disagree• Observers and Actors Disagree

– Actors have much more information about their behavior

– Recognize that their behaviors can be inconsistent

– Tend to see selves in more favorable light

• Self diagnosis

Frequency and Burden of Mental Disorders

• 29-38% of the population has at least one DSM disorder

• Some gender differences exist• Age differences are evident

(developmental)• Mental illness is more debilitating than

malignant diseases (lost years of healthy life)

Stereotypes and Myths about the Mentally Disturbed

• Fundamental attribution error– Easily recognized as deviant

– Disorder due to inheritance

– Incurable

– Weak willed

– Never contribute to society

– Dangerous

– Stress of working is likely to cause relapses

Current Trends

• Psycho-pharmaceuticals– Neutriceuticals

– Deinstitutionalization

• Script v. No Script– New Mexico

– Impact on psychologists

– Impact on mentally ill

• Managed health care

• Status of research– Biotherapy v.

psychotherapy

• Multicultural perspective

• Bias in diagnosis