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The History of Abnormal Psychology. Ancient people regarded mentally-ill people as being possessed by evil spirits, and apparently used “trephining”, piercing a hole in the skull of the afflicted person, in an attempt to “release” these spirits.
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The History of Abnormal Psychology • Ancient people regarded mentally-ill people as being possessed by evil spirits, and apparently used “trephining”, piercing a hole in the skull of the afflicted person, in an attempt to “release” these spirits. • Later, in ancient Greece, Hippocrates viewed abnormality as the result of imbalance among 4 fluids, or biles, in the body. Excess in one of the biles caused the person to display some particular behaviors.
Trephining • It was Broca that identified the meaning of this archeological finding
History (cont-d) • In the Middle Ages, the belief that abnormal behavior is caused by demonic possession was reflected in the “treatments” given to the mentally ill, these “treatments” were administered by the religious authorities, and included all types of procedures to purge the afflicted person of the demons.
Burning “Witches” at the Stake • The mentally- ill seen as possessed by the devil.
History of Abnormal Psychology (cont-d) • Around the 15th century, asylums were established throughout Europe to house the mentally ill, but they became huge warehouses of human misery. • In England, for example, people paid money to enter the hospital St. Mary of Bethlehem to watch the poor mental patients, who were chained and lived in terrible conditions. The word “bedlam” is a distortion of the name of the hospital
St. Mary of Bethlehem • People came to see the mental patients
This was a popular entertainment • This is what they saw
Early Treatment of the Mentally Ill • Enlightened” reform • PhillipePinel (1745-1826) in France • Reduced level of restraint • Introduced “moral treatment” • Improved nutrition and care • Behavior management • William Tuke (1732-1822) in England • Similar moral treatment strategy in farm setting • Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) • Medical model • bloodletting • The “tranquilizer chair”
Pioneers • A reform Movement started in Europe and the US in the 1700’s Chiarugi, Pinel, Tuke, Rush, and Dorothea Dix are some of the names associated with this movement- who advocated humane treatment of the mentally ill.
The 19th Century Asylum Movement • The asylum movement • Improvement through architecture • the Kirkbride model
Asylums (cont-d) • Reforming asylums • Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) • Method toured places where mentally were housed and exposed poor care, neglect, and abuse • Over time, resulted in creation of 47 mental hospitals • Clifford Beers (1876-1943) • Wrote of asylum conditions after experiencing them • The Mind That Found Itself (1908) • Started mental hygiene movement
Late 19th Century DevelopmentsThe Somatic Model • Main models at the beginning of modern times (end of 19th century): The Somatic model, started with the work of Greisinger and Kraepelin, who saw mental disorders as disorders of the brain. Somatic (body) treatments such as psychosurgery and electro-convulsive therapy were used and abused as treatment methods for those institutionalized.
The Somatic Model • Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) • Medical degree, but also studied with Wundt • Developed a classification scheme for mental illness – nine editions • Sixth edition most famous (1899) • 13 categories, the two most serious being • Manic-depressive psychosis • Dementia praecox • Dementia praecox • First identification of the disorder, later called schizophrenia • Attentional model (Wundtian influence) • Apperceptive failure
Mesmerism and Hypnosis • Franz Anton Mesmer, whose name was the basis of the verb “to mesmerize”, was a German doctor who practiced in Vienna and Paris. His work was a further reflection of the idea that the mind and the body are related, and that the mind affects the body. Though his theory of “animal magnetism” has been long discredited, his work is important because of its historical relevance.
Mesmer- beginning of the psychological model for explaining mental illness • Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) • Theory animal magnetism • Poor health resulted from misaligned magnetic forces • Cure was to realign forces • Under his influence trance, then recovery and relief • First Vienna, then Paris • Baquet group therapy • Franklin Commission some effectiveness, but based on suggestion, not magnetism • In England • Demonstrated effects on pain reduction (amputations) • Renamed by Braid neurypnology (sleep of the nervous system)
Mesmer (cont-d) • Mesmer abandoned the “technique” of letting the patient drink iron solution, and switched to a tub filled with “magnetized” water • Patients were sitting around the tub, holding to a metal rod attached to the tub, while Mesmer walked around with a metal wand touched each patient with the wand, and encourage people to have an “emotional crisis”, including sobbing and screaming
Relevance of Mesmer to the History of Psychology • The fact that some of Mesmer’s patients reported symptoms relief is interpreted today as the impact of suggestibility • Mesmer showed that the mind affects the body both in terms of the origin of the seemingly “physical” symptoms, and in terms of the non-physical techniques that brought symptoms relief . In this sense Mesmer can be regarded as the forerunner of the Freudian’s ideas and strategies, presented in Freud’s and Breuer’s seminal book: Studies in Hysteria.
Cont-d • Hypnosis was in a sense based on Mesmerism, because it developed, primarily in England, in the attempt to explain the impact of Mesmer’s techniques on the patient • Hypnosis was originally conceived by the Frenchmen Liebeault and Berenheim as a sleep-like state between sleep and wakefulness • Charcot, whose work later influenced Freud, saw hypnosis as an expression of a deep-seated neurological disorder.
Hypnosis • Charcot and Janet suggested that psychological dysfunction can be treated via hypnosis using verbal suggestions • They also postulated that the human mind has a conscious component and an unconscious component • Later, Freud saw hypnosis as providing access to the unconscious mind, suggesting that the barrier to the unconscious weakens during hypnosis
Hypnosis Today • A recent theory of hypnosis with a psychoanalytic flavor is the neodissociation theory, which suggests that deeply hypnotized people experience and division of their conscious mind. Part of it enters a type of “altered” state, but remains aware of what is going on during the session. The second part is said to act as a “hidden observer”, monitoring the situation. The hypnotized part is unaware of the observer part.
Hypnosis’ relevance o the history of psychology • The early studies of hypnosis are important to the history of psychology because this was one of the factors that brought Freud to promote the concepts of the unconscious mind and of the mechanism of repression, through which painful information is removed from conscious awareness.
The Deinstitutionalization Movement • With the advent of the anti-psychotic (psychotropic) drugs in the late1950’s, a belief that these drugs will cure mental illness brought about the movement toward empting the big mental hospitals, and sending the mental patients into the community, where, as it was hoped, they could function in semi-independent environments. The hope did not materialized, and many mental patients found themselves on the streets.
Late 19th Century DevelopmentThe Psychological Model • The psychological model, viewing mental disorders as a product of the mind started with the interest in hypnosis, culminating with the work of Freud. • The main contention of this model was that mental disorders are caused by unconscious factors. Psychoanalysis had emerged as an attempt to understand a condition that got the name Hysteria • Charcot has shown that he could create and eliminate “hysterical” symptoms under hypnosis
Freud and Psychoanalysis • Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a neurologist in Vienna practicing with hypnosis to treat patients who suffered from hysteria: adisorder in which the patient displays a variety of physical symptoms without having any organic basis for them. He foundthat under hypnosis his patients uncovered early childhood memories, typically dealing with unpleasant events of sexualnature. He later used the technique of free associations instead of hypnosis. When his patients talked about their early memoriestheir symptoms have subsided. • There was no way to confirm the validity of these early memories.
Anna 0: Freud’s First Case (together with Joseph Breuer) and the Basis for Many of his Ideas • Anna O. displayed a range of physical symptoms, for which no physical cause had been identified • When Freud and Breuer's engaged Anna O. in the discussion of her symptoms, as well as her childhood memories, she reported feeling better and her symptoms gradually subsided • Talking about problems, resulting in an improvement was described as “catharsis”- a term taken from the ancient Greek theater, when people came to watch the tragedies, cried and expressed other negative emotions, and in this way reached catharsis- which means cleansing.
