History of Psychology and Psychopathology

History of Psychology and Psychopathology

Trephining/Trepanning

• Practice of putting holes in skulls, dating back 8-10 thousand years (Stone Age).

• Tens of thousands of skulls found in Europe and South America with these holes.

• Reason: Possibly to allow evil spirits to escape the person's mind (demonology).

• Archaeological evidence suggests the practice did something.

• Anthropological evidence: Kisi of Kenya practiced it until the 1970s for headaches to brain cancer.

• Possible Stone Age frontal lobotomies: removing bone from the frontal lobe.

• Prefrontal lobotomies in the US until the 1950s, replaced by antipsychotic medication.

• Prefrontal lobotomies rendered individuals sedate and manageable.

Demonology

• Worldwide belief that evil spirits control a person's mind.

• Babylonians: Itta was a specific demon for insanity.

• Belief present in Egyptian, Greek, Hebrew, and Christian texts.

• Mark 5:1-15 King James Version - Jesus casts out demons from a man into swine (Legion).

• Historically, the church dealt with the mentally ill.

• Elaborate prayer rites and exorcisms.

• Exorcism rituals: Accurate in movies, lasting 8-16 hours.

• Noise making: Loud, irritating noise to drive out demons (used by FBI/ATF).

• Starvation.

• Conception of elixirs and brews: Poisonous plants to poison the demon, similar to chemotherapy.

• Flogging.

Greco-Roman Empire

• Temples dedicated to Asclepius (Greek god of healing).

• Temples in healing springs, hot springs, mountains – beautiful places.

• Treatment: Stay overnight, have a dream revealing how to get better.

• Patients have to leave whether they had a dream or not.

Hippocrates (5th-4th Century BC)

• Father of modern medicine.

• Pioneered separation of medicine from religion.

• Proposed a somatogenic origin for deviant behavior.

• Soma (body) + Genesis (beginning) = body beginning.

• Believed the brain was the organ of consciousness.

• Mental illness might be something physically wrong with the brain/body.

• Three categories of mental illness:

  • Mania: Hyper-energetic, impulsive, hypersexual, nonstop talking. Still a disorder today.

  • Melancholia: Depression. Still a disorder today.

  • Frenitis: Brain fever. Delusional, hallucinating behavior due to high fever.

• Explained disorders via imbalance of four humors/fluids:

  • Blood

  • Black bile

  • Yellow bile

  • Phlegm

• Too much blood = mania. Treatment: Bloodletting.

• Too much phlegm = melancholy. Treatment: Decongestants (stimulant plants) to dry up mucus.

Fall of the Roman Empire (476 AD)

• Empire split: Byzantine and Roman.

• Chaos, confusion, instability, war, natural disasters.

• People turned to the church (Roman Catholic) for stability.

• Church influence grew, explaining events as God vs. Satan.

• Middle Ages: Population cut in half due to famine, plague.

• People accused others of being in league with Satan (witches).

• Intent: initially good, to stop evil and save souls, but turned ugly.

The Inquisition

• Set up by the church to go after people who went against the church.

• 1484: Pope Innocent VIII encouraged witch hunts.

• Malleus Maleficarum (witch's hammer): official witch-hunting manual.

  • Created by Kramer and Springer

  • Told how to find a witch, questions to ask, torture methods.

How to Tell if Someone Is a Witch

• Guilty until proven innocent.

• Questions:

  • How long have you been a witch?

  • Why did you become a witch and what happened on that occasion?

• Beliefs about women:

  • Sexually insatiable, lustful for power, summon Satan, have sex with him for powers.

  • Red spots on the skin = marks from Satan

• Trying to find out:

  • If they fly on brooms and attend meetings/sabbats.

  • Which animals they have bewitched to sickness or death

• Halloween Icon: Witch flying on a broom

  • What is the ointment with which you rub your broomstick made of?

• Hallucinogenic plants:

  • Some people accused were tripping.

  • Plants turned into ointments for later use.

  • Insertion into an orifice allows the ointment to soak through, causing hallucinations.

  • Skin insensitivity

  • Sudden loss of reasoning

• Most Mentally ill were now blamed for this, but More sane than insane were probably tried and convicted, due to the torture used.

Torture

• Suspected witches were tortured if they did not confess.

• Confessing led to life imprisonment.

• Not confessing led to being burned at the stake, stoned, flogged, or hanged.

• Moat torture: Push down into a moat (cesspool) to confess.

  • If they drown, they weren't a witch.

  • If they survived, they were a witch.

• The rack: Make the top of the person's body stationary, then pull around the ankles with a rope.

  • Vertebrae pull apart, spinal nerves stretch.

• Hot irons probably against the bottom of their feet.

• Boiling oil or boiling water is being forced into them through a funnel being put in their mouth.

• Garrity chair: Spike slowly turned into cervical vertebrae.

• Head crusher.

• Gender specific torture devices, ex. The pear inserted into an orifice of one's choice and expanded.

• In countries that did torture vs those that did not, it seemed as though more of those from countries that tortured would confess due to the intensity of the methods.

Asylums (16th Century)

• Housed the mentally ill (distinguished from witches).

• Kept in cages, chained to walls, naked.

• Dirt floors or hay.

• Fed out of troughs.

• On display like a human zoo.

Philippe Pinel (late 1700s)

• Wondered if treating the mentally ill differently would improve behavior.

• Bathed, cleaned, clothed, treated individuals like humans.

• Saw improved behavior, big step in the right direction.

Wilhelm Wundt (late 1800's)

• First to create a psych laboratory for research.

• Studied behavior in a controlled situation.

• Established psychology as a separate science.

• Considered the father of psychology.

Sigmund Freud (late 1800s)

• Medical doctor in Vienna.

• Discipline based on medical science:

• Relied on logic and intuition.

• Discipline based on unconscious behavior.

• Unconscious behavior are mainly animalistic: operates on fulfilling desires finding pleasure.

Ivan Pavlov

• Russian physiologist studying canine digestion.

• Discovered conditioned reflex (unconscious learning).

J. B. Watson (1920s)

• Father of behaviorism.

• External influences (environment/experiences) affect how and what we learn.

• Little Albert experiment: Fear can be learned through association.

• Give me a dozen healthy infants well formed, doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant chief, and yes even beggar man and thief regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities.

• Tend to minimize the effect of biology.

B. F. Skinner (1940s)

• Radical behaviorist: took behaviorism to a new level.

• Studied reward and punishment.

• Reward and punishment affect behavior.

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow (1960s)

• Product of culture and environment.

• Focused on positive qualities of people.

• Uniquely human things: religion, spirituality, art, creativity.