Professional Documents
Culture Documents
HISTORY of Abnormal Psychology
HISTORY of Abnormal Psychology
OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLO
GY
History of Psychology
Eric Snitchler
Kevin Harris
An aspect of abnormal psychology that has been and continues to be debated is the cause of mental
illness.Throughout history, people have developed a variety of theories to explain psychological
disturbances.Generally, these theories have fallen on one of three general
themes: mystical/supernatural, scientific/medical, or humanitarian.
Mystical explanations regard abnormal behavior as the result of possession by spirits.The
scientific/medical approach considers natural causes, such as biological imbalances, faulty learning
processes, or emotional stressors.Finally, the humanitarian approach tends to view abnormal behavior
as the result of cruelty or poor living conditions.The differing etiological theories as well as advancing
knowledge have had large impact on the treatment of those with psychological disorders and have
influenced current theories in clinical psychology.
Many theories have been developed as a means to explain the purpose behind
this surgery, called trephining.Some anthropologists theorize that the holes may
have been drilled into the skull as a means of releasing evil spirits that were
trapped inside the head causing abnormal behavior.Other anthropologists
believe that trephining was used to treat medical problems (e.g., removal of a
tumor).However, the true purpose for trephining during the Stone Age remains
unknown.Trephining continues to be practiced today among certain African
tribes for the relief of head wounds.
For an idea of how you might have been treated if you had a mental illness in
the Stone Age click here.
Hammurabi
Having too many of any of these fluids could account for changes in an individuals personality and
behavior.Hippocrates theorized that an excess of black bile would make a person "melancholic"
(depressed), and an excess of yellow bile would cause a person to be "choleric" (anxious or irritable).Too
much phlegm would result in a person being "phlegmatic" (indifferent).An excess of blood would cause a
person to be "sanguine" (experience unstable mood shifts).It is important to note that Hippocrates saw no
distinction between physical and psychological disorders.Hippocrates views dominated thinking regarding
psychological disorders for the next 500 years.In addition however, Hippocrates views were challenged by
supernatural theories and the concomitant cruel treatment of psychologically disturbed people.
To see what sort of "therapy" you might have received in Greek and Rome during 400 B.C. if you were
mentally ill click here.
The next significant in advance in the scientific approach was made in the first century B.C. by a Greek
physician living in Rome who introduced new and more humane ideas about psychological
disorders.Asclepiades (129-40 B.C.) disagreed with Hippocrates that an imbalance of bodily substances
caused psychological disorders.He believed that psychological disturbances could be the result of
emotional problems and spoke out strongly against the incarceration of the mentally ill and bleeding (a
treatment that continued for another 1500 years).Other important advances made by Aesclepiades were a
distinction between acute and chronic psychological disorders and between hallucinations and
delusions.Asclepiades also developed several original treatments including a swinging bed to relax the
emotionally disturbed patient and music therapy.
Later, Aretaeus (50-130AD), a medical philosopher in Rome determined that
manic and depressive episodes could occur in the same person with intervals
of lucidity between.Aretaeus also rejected Hippocrates ideas regarding the
four humours and believed in more humanitarian care for his patients.He also
said that not all patients with mental illness were intellectually
deficient.Therefore, we have evidence that there were some humanitarian
treatments and viewpoints during the period of the Greek and Roman
philosophers.
Many years later Claudius Galen (131-200 A.D) developed a new system of medical knowledge based on
the study of anatomy rather than on philosophical speculation.He was the first researcher to conduct
experiments on animals in order to study the workings of the internal organs.He invented the use of the
pulse for diagnosis and his books on anatomy were used until the 19th century.Galen was appointed to be
physician of the gladiators in 157 A.D. and went to Rome in 162 A.D. to become a doctor to the emperor
Marcus Aurelius.Unfortunately, Galen maintained Hippocrates beliefs in the four humours as the cause of
mental disturbance.However, Galen also suggested that a failure to control ones passions (i.e., anger)
might cause a kind of madness.
Following the lead and success of Pinel, a Quaker William Tuke (1732-1822) established the York Retreat
House in rural England. The retreat enabled people with mental illness to rest peacefully, talk about their
problems, and work.
Meanwhile in the United States in 1769, Benjamin
Rush (1745-1813) was appointed professor of chemistry
and medicine at the college of Philadelphia. Rush is
considered the father of American psychiatry as he
instituted a more scientific approach, and made many
changes that improved the conditions for the mentally ill.
The fact that he was a founding father, politician, and
signed the Declaration of Independence gave him the
power to institute reform. He put into action plans for
better ventilation, separation from violent and nonviolent patients, and arranged recreation and exercise
programs for the sick. However, his methods of
treatment were still inhumane and ineffective. He
believed bloodletting, purging, and terrifying were
beneficial. For more information on what it might be like
Benjamin Rush
to be treated by Rush, click here. Benjamin
Rushs Medical Inquiries and Observations upon
Diseases of the Mind (1812) was the first work on
psychiatry published in the United States.
Between 1817 and 1828, following the examples of Pinel and Tuke, many institutions opened that
devoted themselves exclusively to the treatment of the mentally ill. The first private mental hospital
opened in the United States was the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their
Reason in 1817 in what is now Philadelphia.
Even though there was great emphasis on moral treatment in the 19 th century, drugs were also used quite
often. While claiming to be moral, the chains were exchanged for powerful sedatives to control the
aggressive patient. The most common drugs used were alcohol, cannabis, opium, and chloral hydrate.
These treatments were not very successful as less than a third of the patients improved.
Emil Kraepelin
In the united Kingdom in 1882, the Statistical Committee of the Royal Medico-psychological Association
came up with a classification scheme that was revised many times but never adopted by its members. In
Paris in 1889, the Congress of Mental Science adopted a classification system, but it was never actually
used. Finally in the United States, the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for
the Insane, which later became known as the American Psychiatric Association, adopted an idea similar
to the British system. This system incorporated many of Emil Kraepelins ideas.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) began using
psychoanalysis as a treatment for mental illness and
developed a theory of mind that emphasized
unconscious motivation. His concepts of
development, personality, and structure of the mind
were not new, but he assembled them and
reassembled them in new and innovative ways. For
more detailed information about Sigmund Freud's
Sigmund Freud
life and theories click here. For information on being
a patient of Freudsclick here
Clifford Whittingham Beers (1876-1943), a Yale
graduate, suffered a mental breakdown and was
confined to an asylum from 1900-1903. After his
recovery, he aroused new concern for mentally ill
individuals when he published a study of his
experience titled A Mind That Found Itself (1908).
Beers was responsible for founding the National
Committee for Mental Hygiene, which worked to
prevent mental illness and ensure humane
treatment.
C.W. Beers
another German physician who followed him, Emil Kraepelin, were influential
in the development of the modern medical model. Which likens abnormal
behavior patterns to physical illnesses. Kraepelin's categorization of mental
disorders set the stage for the development of modem systems of
classification.
Asylums, or "madhouses," began to crop up throughout Europe in the late
15th and early 16th centuries, often on the site of former leprosariums.
Conditions in these asylums were dreadful and in some, such as the
Bethlehem Hospital in England, a circus atmosphere prevailed. With the rise
of moral therapy in the 19th century, largely spearheaded by the Frenchmen
Jean-Baptiste Pussin and Phillipe Pinel, conditions in mental hospitals
improved. Proponents of moral therapy believed that mental patients could be
restored to functioning if they were treated with dignity and understanding.
The cause of humane treatment was advanced in the United States by such
figures as Dr. Benjamin Rush, the "father of American psychiatry," and the
schoolteacher Dorothea Dix. But Rush also used certain harsh treatments
that are now discredited, such as purging and ice-cold baths. Dix, who
traveled widely throughout the United States advocating more humane
treatment for people with mental disorders, was credited with the
establishment of some 32 mental hospitals across the country. The decline of
moral therapy in the latter part of the 19th century led to a period of apathy
and to the belief that the "insane" could not be successfully treated.
Conditions in mental hospitals deteriorated, and they offered little more than
custodial care.
Not until the middle of the 20th century did public outrage and concern
about the plight of mental patients mobilize legislative efforts toward the
development of community mental health centers as alternatives to long-term
hospitalization. This movement toward deinstitutionalization was spurred by
the introduction of psychoactive drugs called phenothiazines, which curbed
the more flagrant features of schizophrenia.
Abnormal behavior may be viewed from various contemporary
perspectives. The medical model conceptualizes abnormal behavior patterns
like physical diseases, in terms of clusters of symptoms, called syndromes,
which have distinctive causes that are presumed to be biological in nature.
Biological perspectives incorporate the medical model but refer more broadly
to approaches that relate abnormal behavior to biological processes and apply
biologically based treatments. Psychodynamic perspectives reflect the views
of Freud and his followers, who believed that abnormal behavior stemmed