Abnormal Behavior in Historical Context - Abnormal Psychology - Lecture Slides, Slides of Abnormal Psychology

Download Abnormal Behavior in Historical Context - Abnormal Psychology - Lecture Slides and more Slides Abnormal Psychology in PDF only on Docsity!

Abnormal Behavior in Historical

Context

Outline

• Understanding Psychopathology

• What is Normal?
• What is Psychological Disorder?

• Different Approaches to Psychopathology

• The Supernatural Tradition
• The Biological Tradition
• The Psychological Tradition
• The Present: The Scientific Method and an

Integrative Approach

Understanding Psychopathology

• What is normal?
• The definition of ABNORMAL used in

DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of

Mental Disorders, 4th^ edition)

• Abnormal describes behavioral, emotional, or

cognitive dysfunctions that are unexpected in

their cultural context and associated with

personal distress or substantial impairment in

functioning.

Understanding Psychopathology

• Judy
• Psychological disorder consists of three

components:

• Psychological dysfunction
  • Breakdown in cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning (continuum vs. dimension)
• Personal distress
  • Being extremely upset (caution – sometimes it is normal to be extremely upset)
• Atypical or not culturally expected behavior
  • Social norms and their possible misuse

Different Approaches to Psychopathology

 The Biological Tradition

◦ Hippocrates  Mental illness caused by brain pathology, head trauma, heredity ◦ Galen  Humoral theory of disorders (blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm) ◦ Pasteur’s germ theory of disease  Mental illness can be caused by a bacterial infection (syphilis) ◦ John P. Grey  Insanity is always due to physical causes and patients suffering from mental illness should be treated as physically ill

Different Approaches to Psychopathology

• The Biological Tradition
  • Focus on diagnosis
    • Search for biological causes and classification
  • Therapy
    • Undiscovered psychopathology – reduced interest in treating patients
    • Insulin shock therapy
    • Electroconvulsive therapy  ECT
    • Chemical drugs

Different Approaches to Psychopathology

• The Psychological Tradition
  • Psychoanalytic theory  Anna O.
    • Mesmerism – ancestor of hypnosis, using unconscious processes in therapy
    • Catharsis – rapid and sudden release of emotional tension
    • Structure of the mind (id, ego, superego)
    • Defense mechanisms (coping styles in response to particular situations, e.g. displacement, denial, projection, rationalization, sublimation)
    • Psychosexual stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital)
    • Therapy (free association, dream analysis, hypnosis)

Freud’s structure of the mind

Different Approaches to

Psychopathology

• The Present: An Integrative Approach Bedlam
  • Integration of biological, psychological, social and other approaches to diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorder
  • Scientific approach to mental disorders
    • Prevalence (number of people in the population suffering from a disorder at a given time)
    • Incidence (number of new cases appearing during a specific time period)
    • Course (pattern of development, e.g. chronic course, episodic course, time-limited course)
    • Prognosis (anticipated course of a disorder)

Different Approaches to Psychopathology

• The Present: An Integrative Approach
  • Psychopathology
    • The scientific study of psychological disorders
  • Mental health professionals
    • Clinical psychologists (more severe disorders)
    • Counseling psychologists (vocational issues)
    • Psychiatrists (emphasize biological treatments)
    • Psychiatric social workers (treatment focused on social and family issues
    • Psychiatric nurses (treatment in hospitals)