Chapter 1: Conceptual, historical, research, perspectives

What is the challenge for students

Experts don’t always agree

Why experts don’t always agree?

• Different definitions of mental illness

• Contradictory perspectives common

What are the three contradictory perspectives common?

• Biological perspectives- emphasize malfunctioning physiology and focus on mental illnesses as medical conditions that afflict people.

• Psychological perspectives- attribute mental distress to psychological conflicts involving problematic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

• Sociocultural perspectives- attribute mental distress to social causes as the root causes of peoples emotional upset.

What is psychopathology?

Studies dysfunction or disorders that lead to cognitive and emotional upset(mental illness)

What is mental distress?

Cognitive and/or emotional upset, considered expected or normal in some cases and a sign of psychopathology in others

What is mental illness?

An illness affecting or located in a person’s brain that affects how a person thinks, behaves, and interacts with other people

Comparison on how APA and BPS defines mental illnesses?

APA define it as medical conditions while BPS define it as a medicalization

What is a mental disorder?

A condition involving significant problems with thinking, emotions, or behavior due to underlying psychological, biological, or developmental dysfunction.

What is medicalization?

Inappropriately classifying non-medical problems as medical

Mental illness is referred also as like?

A medical conditions just like heart disease

What is psychiatry?

A medical doctor (MD) who can prescribe medication

What is psychology

Focuses on talk therapy, assessments, and behavioral treatment but generally cannot prescribe medication

What is internal dysfunction?

Mental mechanism fails to operate according to its naturally designed function

What harmfulness defines as?

Behaviour society deems harmful is caused by internal dysfunction

What is deviance?

Behaviour that violates social norms and values

What is social oppression?

Unjust social conditions, which lead to mental distress

What are the two things that were referred until recently as abnormal psychology?

The psychophatology and mental distress

What is abnormal psychology?

The alternative name for the study of psychopathology and mental distress that is increasingly considered pejorative

What are the common criteria of “abnormality”?

• Statistical deviation

• Violation of social norms and values

• Behaviours that disturbs others

• Harmfulness to self or others

• Emotional suffering

• Misperception of reality

What is statistical deviation?

Identifies abnormality by comparing people to statistical norms

What is prevalence?

Percentage of people in the population believed to currently suffer from a specific mental disorder

What is incidence?

The number of new cases of a mental disorder that are diagnosed within a specified period

What does violation of social norms and values refers to?

Plays into judgements of abnormality as different people have different ideas of how others should behave socially or morally

What is onanism? What is its harm?

• Labels those who masturbate as having a mental disorder

• Causes: cloudiness of ideas, madness, and physical disorders

What effects does behaviours that disturbs others leads to?

Makes people uncomfortable because it is often judged abnormal

What is emotional suffering?

Consistent depression, anxiety, anger, or ambivalence

What is misperception of reality is often attributed to?

Faulty perceptions and interpetations

What are the two things that shows the Stone Age perspectives?

• Trepanation

• Demonological Perspectives

What is trepanation?

Prehistoric treatment of abnormal behaviour in which holes were drilled in the skull to free evil spirits

How demonological perspective views abnormal behaviour?

Views abnormal behaviours as due to possession by evil spirits

What demonological perspectives also called as?

Supernatural perspective

What does Hippocrates biological perspectives 4 elements includes?

Includes earth, air, fire, and water that combines inside each person to form four bodily humors

What is bodily humours?

Four biological substances identified by the Ancient Greeks and long considered important in understanding mental distress

What are the four humours? What are they?

• Black bile(cold and dryness)

• Yellow bile(hot and dryness)

• Phlegm(cold and moisture

• Blood(heat and moisture)

What is hysteria viewed by Hippocrates?

A malady involving numerous psychological and physical symptoms that the Ancient Greeks diagnosed exclusively on women

What is the wandering womb theory viewed by Hippocrates?

A biological theory that attributed to hysteria to a woman’s uterus detaching from its natural location and wandering around her body

What is Socrates’ perspective?

• Introspective knowledge is key to keeping passions from running amok

• “Know thyself”

What is Plato’s perspective?

Psychopathology occurs when soul loses ability to reason

What is Aristotle’s naturalistic perspective for mental functioning?

Recognize that heart is the organ responsible for mental functioning

How Aristotle overcomes emotional difficulties?

Used reason and logic and influenced modern cognitive-behavioural therapy(CBT)

What are the perspectives in the middle ages?

• Avicenna’s biological perspective

• Early hospitals

• Demonological perspectives in Europe

• Dancing Mania

What is Avicenna’s biological perspective during Middle Ages?

Described various symptoms of abnormality like hallucinations

During Middle Ages who to early hospitals provides services for?

Services to the “mad”

What is bibliotherapy that early middle age hospitals have?

This encouraged patients to read books and discuss their emotional reactions in groups

What is malleus maleficarum?

Popular book during the Middle Ages that examined witchcraft and demonic possessions; reflecting demonological perspective

What is the influence of cultural context from Middle Ages?

Dancing mania that illustrates the idea that how people express “madness”

What are the renaissance period perspectives?

• Melancholia

• Explanations and treatments for abnormality

• Early asylums

What period is the most “physically disturbed” with melancholia?

Renaissance Period

What is melancholia in renaissance period?

An early inclusive term for what we call today depression

What period did wide variety of explanations and treatments for abnormality flourished?

During Renaissance period

Where humane religious treatment occurred in early asylums in Europe?

Occurred in Geel, Belgium

Name of hospital that has inhumane conditions and chaotic public viewing

Bethlehem Hospital, England’s first and most notorious mental asylum

What is the nickname “Bedlam” means?

A scene or state of wild uproar/madness and confusion

What are the 18th and 19th century perspectives?

• Moral therapy

• Prominent figures

What is moral therapy?

Move towards more psychological and less physically coercive treatments

What is Alienists?

First psychiatrists that worked with people experiencing “mental alienation”

Who is Philippe Pinel?

Early alienist from France that views that gentler asylum would alcove more effective therapy

What is the critics of moral therapy?

Kind on the surface but could actually take away freedom and independence

Why moral therapy declined?

• Overcrowding resulting staff shortage

• Medical doctors reasserted their authority and instituted a more strictly medical model

What is custodial care

People with mental illness are kept in institutions mainly for supervision and basic needs, not to actively treat or cure them.

What is the 20th and 21st century perspectives?

• Controversial treatments

• Antipsychiatry

• Deinstitutionalization

What is the maralial therapy?

Rooted in the assumption that a high fever improves symptoms of psychopathology so patients were injected with malaria virus as a treatment for their ils

What is convulsion therapy?

Used to treat schizophrenia by epileptic-like convulsions that were induced by injecting insulin or electric shocks to brain(ECT)

What is insulin coma theraphy?

Epileptic-like convulsions that were induced by injecting patients with insulin

What is ECT known as and what is it?

Electroconvulsive therapy; electric shocks to brain

What is psychosurgery?

Brain surgery for mental disorders; theres severed connections between the prefrontal lobes and other parts of the brain

What is antipsychiatry?

Movement that challenged the medical model of psychiatry, arguing that mental illnesses are better viewed as everyday problems in living

Who are the two figures that is associated with antipsychiatry movement?

R.D. Laing and Thomas Szasz

What is deinstitutionalization?

Release of patients from mental hospitals; widespread in the latter 12th century at mental institutions across North America and Europe