Term 1 Psychology

1200 BC perspective on health

• trepanation = use stones/bones to poke hoes into cranium to ‘blow away’ the badness

• disease is punishment from the gods believed by those who were religious

500 BC —> 500 AC perspective on health

Hippocrates: ‘illness is not Gods issue’

• balance between bodily fluids (humours)

• mind and body are 1 unit

• started to look into health and disease as separate and questioned ‘why’ to disease

Galen: every illness (physical OR MENTAL) has a physiological root —> alterations to the physical

• mind still not related to the cause of disease

500 BC —> 500 AC bile/essences

• yellow bile = angry / choleric / fiery

• black = sadness

• blood = optimistic

  • used to use leeches to remove blood

• phlegm = calm

• rebalance by bleeding, starving, cold baths, diet

500 —> 1600 AC perspective on health

= Middle Ages

• Hippocrates/Galen lost importance and God was thought as the reason again

  • Believed no real control over health

• Science taken away

• Treatment: self punishment, confession, praying, abstinence from sin

1500 —> 1800 AC perspective on health

Renaissance

• scientific revolution = 1600

  • religion and science separated despite scientists own belief

• scholarly and scientific studies and developments in physical medicine

• understanding human physiology with new explanations for illness

  • no psychological explanations though

1500 —> 1800 AC scientist

Renaissance

René descartes

• dualism: mind and body are independent entities

  • They can interact but mind is not tangible

  • under control of pineal gland but limited understanding of how it worked

• Physicians = body issues

• Theologians = mental issues

1800 —> present

perspective on health

modern/contemporary times

• body = machine —> has constituent parts

• allowed to dissect (religion prohibited it)

• illness on a biological and molecular level

• biomedical model —> conceptual advances

• diseases induced by behavioural actions and maladaptive cognition e.g digestive problem

1800 —> present

pscyh pioneer

modern/contemporary times

sigmund freud - fought dualism

• hysteria: suffering physical symptoms but no detectable pathology

  • conversion disorder

• unconscious conflicts are the cause of physical disturbances

• treatment: madhouses / torture