History and Theory

• Factors that determine abnormality in behavior

  • Development
  • Culture
  • Context
  • Zeitgeist
• Abnormal behavior


  Behavior that deviates from the norm
• Different approaches to abnormality

  • Statistical Infrequency or Violation of Social Norms
  • Subjective Distress
  • Disability, Dysfunction, or Impairment
• Pros of Statistical Infrequency


  • Allows the establishment of cutoff points
  • Makes diagnosis fairly clear
  • Intuitive Appeal
• Cons of Statistical Infrequency


  • How to establish cutoff points
  • Who gets to decide what is the cutoff and how is it decided?
  • What about # of deviations
  • What about cultural and developmental relativity
  • What about the benefit of nonconformists to society?
  • Excessive conformity?
• Pros of Subjective Distress


  • The individuals themselves get to decide when something is a problem
  • Self-agency
• Cons of Subjective Distress


  • Sometimes the individual is not the one distressed
  • Examples: ASPD, Autism (in some cases), ADHD (in some cases), Schizoid
• Pros of Disability, Dysfunctions, or Impairment


  • Relatively little inference is required
  • Impairment is often what brings people in to seek treatment
• Cons of Disability, Dysfunctions, or Impairment


  • Again- who decides the cutoffs?
  • Involves a value-oriented standard
  • Example: My anxiety may get in the way of my intimate relationships but might also serve to push me to work hard and succeed at my job
• Approximately 47% of adults in the U.S. have suffered from a psychological disorder at some time in their life
• This makes almost half of us abnormal
• Psychological distress is an "us" thing, not a "them" thing
• What we know about the history of abnormal psychology is based on archeological evidence and texts
• Ancient Egyptians


  • Believed spirits controlled environment and behavior
• Some ancient cultures

  • Practiced trephination - using an instrument to cut away sections of the skull to release evil spirits
• Ancient Greek beliefs


  • Gods controlled abnormal behavior
  • Defying the gods led to mental illness
• 13th century

  • Moved to a more organic model of illness
  • Treated psychological problems with roots, opium, music, massage, etc.
  • Mental illness was thought to result from either trauma or imbalance in bodily humors (fluids)
• Hippocrates


  • Produced a diagnostic classification system
  • Identified abnormal behaviors such as hallucinations, delusions, melancholia, and mania
• Hysteria


  Patients experiencing physical problems appearing to have no biological cause
• Functional neurologic disorder (formerly conversion disorder) is what hysteria is called today
• After Rome fell


  • Everyone went back to demonology, except some Islamic countries
  • Avicenna wrote Cannon of Medicine, considered the most influential textbook ever, and believed in humane treatment of the mentally ill
• Church was extremely powerful and influential during the Middle Ages


  • Wars, plagues, oppression, famine, etc. led people to explain events as caused by demons and witchcraft
  • Between 1400-1700, 200,000 people accused of witchcraft, 80-85% of them women
  • Usually if you were put on trial, you were found guilty
  • "Canterbury Ducking Stool"
• Renaissance period

  • Dutch physician Johann Weyer was first to specialize in treatment of mental illness
  • Swiss physician Paracelsus refuted mental disorders caused by demons
  • These changing views led to separating mentally ill from criminals and housing them in separate buildings called asylums, which started out as a good idea but led to really bad stuff like overcrowding, inhumane treatment, and tortuous practices
• 19th century

  • Philippe Pinel proposed mental illness was curable and one must listen to patient and observe their behavior
  • William Tuke established the York Retreat, a small country house made to look like a home rather than institution, and advocated for moral treatment founded on kindness and occupation
• 19th century

  • Dorothea Dix devoted her life to helping those in institutions and advocating for humane treatment of the mentally ill
  • Emil Kraepelin brought scientific method to study abnormal behavior and introduced two diagnostic categories based on etiology (cause) and prognosis (progression and outcome): Dementia Praecox and Manic-depressive insanity
• 20th century

  • Sigmund Freud greatly influenced 20th century psychology with his theory of the unconscious and development of psychoanalysis
  • Ivan Pavlov's research on digestion in dogs led to the discovery of conditioned responses, known as classical conditioning
  • John B. Watson challenged Freud's theory as unscientific and founded behaviorism, believing only observable behavior was worth studying
• 20th century

  • B.F. Skinner, the most famous behaviorist, believed mental states had no scientific value and studied how behaviors were shaped or influenced by consequences
  • Biological models view abnormal behavior as caused by biological processes, although the purely biomedical model has little empirical support currently
  • Psychological models include psychoanalytic, cognitive, behavioral, and humanistic approaches
• Biopsychosocial model

  • Behavior comes from a complex interaction of a person's biology, psychological processes, and social/cultural factors
  • Diathesis-stress model - diathesis is a biological or psychological predisposition, and stress are environmental factors that can lead to expression of the predisposition