Overview and Historical Context of Abnormal Psychology

Abnormal Psychology

It is a branch of psychology that studies unusual patterns of behavior, emotion and thought, which may or may not be understood as precipitating a mental disorder.

Developmental Psychology

How and why human beings change over the course of their life.

Developmental Psychopathology

How psychopathology can be understood in the context/contrast to normal development.

Abnormal Behavior

It is a behavior that can be disturbing (socially unacceptable), distressing, maladaptive (or self‐defeating), and often the result of distorted thoughts (cognitions).

Indicators of Abnormality

1. Subjective distress

2. Maladaptiveness

3. Statistical Deviancy

4. Violation of the standards of Society

5. Social Discomfort

6. Irrationality and Unpredictability

7. Dangerousness

4 Indicators of Abnormality (4Ds)

1. Distress

2. Dysfunction

3. Danger

4. Deviance

Distress

Refers to negative feelings such as distress over sadness or guilt, irritation, disgust, loneliness and aggression.

Danger

Behaviors that might put you or someone else at some type of detrimental risk: having thoughts of suicide, or harming yourself.

Dysfunction

The inability to achieve daily functions (like going to work).

Deviance

Thoughts, emotions, or behaviors that deviate from what is common or at odds with what is deemed acceptable in society.

Epidemiology

The study of the distribution of diseases, disorders, or health related behaviors in a given population.

Incidence

Occurrence (onset) rate of a given disorder in a given population. This refers to the number of new cases that occur over a given period of time (typically 1 year).

Prevalence

It refers to the number of active cases in a population during any given period of time.

Point Prevalence

It refers to the estimated proportion of actual, active cases of a disorder in a given population at a given point in time.

Lifetime Prevalence

The proportion of living persons in a population who have ever had a disorder up to the time of the epidemiologic assessment.

1-year Prevalence

Total number of cases of a health-related state or condition in a population for a given year.

Onset

It refers to the time when a disease or disorder begins.

Acute Onset

Abrupt, beginning suddenly, rapid development of symptoms.

Idiopathic

A disease or disorder that arise spontaneously from an unknown cause.

Insidious Onset

Gradual onset, symptoms develop gradually over an extended period of time.

Course

It describes the pattern of how the illness progresses over time.

Chronic

Illness lasts for a while; long-term.

Episodic

Patient will recover, but then symptoms develop again over time.

Time-limited

Symptoms get better shortly even without treatment.

Prognosis

It refers to the anticipated course of a disorder.

Comorbidity

It refers to the presence of two or more disorders in the same person.

Signs

It can be detected by someone other than the individual affected by the disease; objective evidence.

Symptoms

It is a subjective evidence of disease; phenomenon that is experienced by the individual affected by the disease.

Syndrome

Set of signs and symptoms.

Asymptomatic

A person is diagnosed with a disorder but doesn't show any symptoms.

Symptomatic

A person is diagnosed and show any kind of symptoms.

Atypical Symptoms

It refers to the symptoms that differ from the typical or expected presentation of the disease or disorder.

Typical Symptoms

It refers to the more common or classic symptoms associated with the illness.

Etiology

It refers to the cause of the disorder.

Papyrus - The Edwin Smith Papyrus

It contains detailed descriptions of treatment of wounds and other surgical operations.

Demonology, Gods, and Magic

Chinese, Egyptians, Hebrews, and Greeks attributed abnormal behavior to possession.

Hippocrates

First to recognize biological cause of disorders; Father of modern medicine.

4 Fluids need to maintain balance

• Blood

• Bile

• Phlegm

• Black Bile

Avicenna from Persia

Hysteria, epilepsy, manic reactions, and melancholia

Mass Madness

It is the widespread occurrence of group behavior disorders that were apparently cases of hysteria.

Tarantism

It is the uncontrollable impulse to dance; Saint Victus’ Dance.

Lycanthropy

People believed they were possessed by wolves.

Paracelsus

Discovered that mania was not caused by possession but a form of disease.

Lunatic

Influenced by his astral beliefs; the moon exerted a supernatural influence over the brain.

Johann Weyener

First physician to specialize on mental disorders; Founder of modern psychopathology.

Humanitarian Approach

Establishments of Asylum/ Mad Houses

Philippe Pinel

Experimented on removing chains

William Tuke

Established York Retreat

York Retreat

A pleasant country house where patients with mental illness lived, worked, and rested in a kindly, religious atmosphere.

Benjamin Rush

Father of American/ Modern Psychiatry; American who encouraged for humane treatment of the mentally ill.

Dorothea Dix

Mental Hygiene Movement; Improvement of hospital conditions

Deinstitutionalization

Vigorous efforts to close down asylums and to return the psychiatrically ill to the community.

Moral Management

Range of methods of treatment that focused on patient’s social, individual and occupational needs; Rehabilitation of their character.

Mental Hygiene Movement

Method of treatment that focused almost exclusively on the physical well being of hospitalized mental patients.

Culture

It refers to systems of knowledge, concepts, values, norms, and practices that are learned and transmitted across generations. It is open, dynamic systems that undergo continuous change over time.

Cultural Syndromes

These are clusters of symptoms and attributions that tend to co-occur among individuals in specific cultural groups, communities, or contexts and that are recognized locally as coherent patterns of experience.

Cultural Idioms of Distress

These are ways of expressing distress that may not involve specific symptoms or syndromes, but that provide collective, shared ways of experiencing and talking about personal or social concerns.

Cultural explanations of distress or perceived causes

Perceived causes are labels, attributions, or features of an explanatory model that indicate culturally recognized meaning or etiology for symptoms, illness, or distress.

Culture-Bound Syndrome

It ignores the fact that clinically important cultural differences often involve explanations or experience of distress rather than culturally distinctive configurations of symptoms.

Cultural concepts of distress

It refers to ways that individuals experience, understand, and communicate suffering, behavioral problems, or troubling thoughts and emotions.

Ataque de nervios

• Latinx culture

• intense emotional upset, including acute anxiety, anger, or grief;

• screaming and shouting uncontrollably; attacks of crying• trembling;

• heat in the chest rising into the head;

• verbally and physically aggressive

Dhat Syndrome

• South Asia

• Semen Loss

• A cultural explanation of distress for individuals who refer to diverse symptoms, such as anxiety, fatigue, weakness, weight loss, erectile dysfunction, other multiple somatic complaints, and depressed mood.

Hikikomori

It is a severe social withdrawal observed in Japan that may result in complete cessation of in-person interactions with others.

Khyal Cap (Wind Attacks)

Cambodia; It may occur without warning but are frequently brought about by triggers such as worrisome thoughts, standing up (i.e., orthostasis), specific odors with negative associations, and agoraphobic-type cues like going to crowded spaces or riding in a car.

Kufungisisa (thinking too much)

Shona, Zimbabwe; It is considered to be causative of anxiety, depression, and somatic problems.

Maladi Dyan (Satan Illness)

Cultural explanation in Haitian communities for diverse medical and psychiatric disorders, or other negative experiences and problems in functioning.

Nervios

It refers to a general state of vulnerability to stressful life experiences and to difficult life circumstances; includes a wide range of symptoms of emotional distress, somatic disturbance, and inability to function.

Shenjing shuairuo

weakness of nervous system in Mandarin, Chinese; includes 3 out of 5 symptoms

• weakness (e.g., mental fatigue),

• emotions (e.g., feeling vexed),

• excitement (e.g., increased recollections),

• nervous pain (e.g.,headache), and

• sleep (e.g., insomnia).

Susto (Fright)

Latin cultural context; an illness attributed to a frightening event that causes the soul to leave the body and results in unhappiness and sickness, as well as difficulties functioning in key social roles.

Taijin kyofusho (interpersonal fear disorder)

A syndrome found in Japanese cultural contexts characterized by anxiety about and avoidance of interpersonal situations due to the thought, feeling, or conviction that the individual’s appearance and actions in social interactions are inadequate or offensive to others.

Sensitive type of Taijin kyofusho

With extreme social sensitivity and anxiety about interpersonal interaction.

Offensive type of Taijin kyofusho

Mejor concern is offending others.

Koro (shrinking penis)

It is a Malay culture bound delusional disorder in which individuals have an overpowering belief that their sex organs are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals.

Sikopatolohiya (Filipino Psychopathology)

It is the study of abnormal psychology in the Filipino context.

Amok (Austronesian Mood Disorder)

A person suddenly loses control of himself and goes into a killing frenzy, after which he/she hallucinates and falls into a trance. After he/she wakes up, he has absolutely no memory of the event.

Bangungot

A relatively common occurrence in which a person suddenly loses control of his respiration and digestion, and falls into a coma and ultimately to death.

Babayad-katalonan

Before the, and survived during the Spanish Period; diagnosis and treatment of diseases is based on the idea of two souls.

Herbolarios

Native medical practitioners.

Mangkukulam

Witches who causes pains in the stomach, or swelling in any part of the body.

Aswang

Spirit or thing that enters the body of the person causing them to be ill. Tradition of a Datu to kill a slave to offer its entrails.