Key Concepts in Abnormal Psychology and Mental Health Treatment

4 dimensions of abnormality

dysfunction, distress, deviance, and dangerousness

diathesis stress model

a diagnostic model that proposes that a disorder may develop when an underlying vulnerability is coupled with a precipitating event

Disease Model of Mental Illness

Commonly thought behaviors, thoughts, or feelings can be viewed as pathological or abnormal if they are symptoms of a mental illness

Cultural Relativism

the practice of judging a society by its own standards, abnormality is not universal across cultures

china's historical views of abnormality

believed in yin (negative) and yang (positive), an imbalance could cause insanity or abnormality

trephination

An ancient operation in which a stone instrument was used to cut away a circular section of the skull, perhaps to treat abnormal behavior.

wandering uterus theory

belief that a displaced uterus was the cause of many medical pathologies in women, and could be treated with sexual intercourse, and vaginal inserts and fumigation

Hippocrates

"Founder of Medicine" During the Golden Age in Greece he was a scientist that believed all diseases came from natural causes. He also had high ideals for physicians & an oath was made that is still used today.

4 humors

blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile

psychic epidemic

a phenomenon in which large numbers of people engage in unusual behaviors that appear to have a psychological origin

Madhouse Act 1774

intended to clean up conditions in hospitals and madhouses and protect people from being unjustly jailed for insanity

Wilhelm Griesinger

Psychological disorders can be explained in terms of brain pathology

Emil Kraepelin

A pioneer of diagnostic categorization in mental health who was one of the first to assign formal labels to particular clusters of symptoms

Franz Mesmer

One of the first to use hypnosis to help patients. He would "magnetize" his patients, harnessing their "animal magnetism" to cure their problems.

Sigmund Freud

Austrian physician whose work focused on the unconscious causes of behavior and personality formation; founded psychoanalysis.

Albert Bandura

pioneer in observational learning (AKA social learning), stated that people profit from the mistakes/successes of others; Studies: Bobo Dolls-adults demonstrated 'appropriate' play with dolls, children mimicked play

Albert Ellis

pioneer in Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), focuses on altering client's patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive behavior and emotions

B.F. Skinner

Behaviorist that developed the theory of operant conditioning by training pigeons and rats

Aaron Beck

pioneer in Cognitive Therapy. Suggested negative beliefs cause depression.

halfway houses

living facilities that offer people with long-term mental health problems the opportunity to live in a structured, supportive environment while they are trying to reestablish employment and ties to family and friends

day treatment centres

mental health facilities that provide more intensive psychiatric, occupational, and rehabilitative therapies for persons with mental illness during the day while clients live at home during recovery

structural barriers

Factors in the social, political and economic organization of a society that limit life chances and social mobility through discrimination.

attitudinal barriers

Personal beliefs regarding the viability and necessity of treatment