Abnormal Psych B209 Chapter 1

Philippe Pinel

A French physician who believed that many forms of abnormality could be cured by restoring patients' dignity and tranquility. Pinel took charge of La Bicêtre in Paris in 1793 and ordered that patients be allowed to walk freely around the asylum. They were provided with clean and sunny rooms, comfortable sleeping quarters, and good food. Nurses and professional therapists were trained to work with the patients. Many thought Pinel was ridiculous, but his method was remarkably successful. Many people who had been locked away for decades became able to control their behavior and even be released from the asylum.

Managed care

A collection of methods for coordinating care that ranges from simple monitoring to total control over what care can be provided and paid for.

General Paresis

A disease that leads to paralysis, insanity, and eventually death.

Patient's rights movement

A large and vocal movement in the 1960s that argued that mental patients can recover more fully or live more satisfying lives if they are integrated into the community, with the support of community-based treatment facilities

Moral treatment

A movement grounded in the philosophy that all people, even the most challenged, are entitled to consideration and human compassion. Led by Philippe Pinel.

Mental hygiene movement

A period during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries during which more humane treatment of people with mental health problems was accepted and assimilated. This new treatment was based on the psychological view that people developed problems because they had been separated from nature and had succumbed to the stresses imposed by the rapid social changes of the period. The treatments included prayers, rest, and relaxation in serene and physically appealing places.

Dorothea Dix (1802-1887)

A retired schoolteacher who fought for the moral treatment of mental patients in the United States. Originally visiting a women's jail to teach a Sunday school class, she saw negligence and brutality directed towards women who exhibited abnormal behavior, but because they were poor and could not afford to stay in private asylums, they had been thrown in jail. Dix's lobbying efforts led to the passage of laws and appropriations to fund the cleanup of mental hospitals and proper training of mental health professionals.

The four humors

A theory founded by Hippocrates who believed that everyone had these, and imbalances of them would lead to physical and psychological problems. Treatments intended to balance these four humors, such as bloodletting.

Classical Conditioning

A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events.

Trephination

An operation using a tool called a trephine that would drill a hole or cut away a portion of the skull, in order to theoretically release spirits residing in a person displaying abnormal behaviors.

Jean Charcot

Argued that hysteria was caused by degeneration in the brain. However, he was proved wrong.

Deviant

Behaviors such as hearing voices. Deviancy can be affected by cultural norms.

Community mental health centers

Community-based treatment facilities that often include teams of social workers, therapists, and physicians who coordinate care, ranging from halfway houses, to day treatment centers.

Psychic epidemics

Defined as a phenomenon in which large numbers of people engage in unusual behaviors that appear to have a psychological origin. During the Middle Ages, reports of dance frenzies or manias were frequent. Another example was tarantism, where people attributed sudden pain and odd behaviors due to the bite of a tarantula.

The four Ds of Abnormality

Dysfunction, distress, deviance, and dangerousness.

Mesmerism

Founded by Franz Anton Mesmer. Believed that people have a magnetic fluid in the body that must be distributed in a particular pattern, and this treatment realigned people's magnetic fluids.

Asylums during the 16th century

Generally very poor conditions, with patients being treated more like inmates. They were usually chained to the wall or ground or locked inside boxes. One of the most infamous hospitals, nicknamed 'Bedlam', was the Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem, which became a mental hospital in 1547. Patients might even be exhibited to the public for a fee. Laws regarding the confinement of the mentally ill in Europe and the US were concerned with the affected's family and the general public. It was not until 1774 when the first Act of Regulating Madhouses in England was passed.

Deinstitutionalization

Integrating patients into the outside world, with mental health support

Community mental health movement

Launched in 1963 by JFK, it was a "bold new approach" to mental health care. This movement attempted to provide coordinated mental health services to people in community mental health centers.

Sigmund Freud

One of Charcot's students, he became convinced that much of the mental life of an individual remains hidden from consciousness.

Supernatural theories

One of the perspectives on abnormality across history. This type of theory viewed abnormal behavior as a result of divine intervention, curses, demonic possession, and personal sin. To rid the person of the perceived affliction, religious rituals, exorcisms, confessions and atonement have been prescribed.

Psychological theories

One of the perspectives on abnormality across history. This type of theory viewed abnormal behavior as a result of traumas, such as bereavement, or of chronic stress. According to these theories, rest, relaxation, a change of environment, and certain herbal medicines are sometimes helpful.

Biological theories

One of the perspectives on abnormality across history. This type of theory viewed abnormal behavior as similar to physical diseases, caused by the breakdown of systems in the body. The appropriate cure is the restoration of bodily health.

Act of Regulating Madhouses (1774)

Passed with the intention of cleaning up the deplorable conditions in hospitals and madhouses and protecting people from being unjustly jailed for insanity. This act provided for the licensing and inspection of madhouses and required that a physician, a surgeon, or an apothecary sign a certificate before a patient could be admitted. However, this act only applied to paying patients in private madhouses, not the poor people confined to workhouses.

Self-efficacy beliefs

People's beliefs about their ability to execute the behaviors necessary to control important events.

Hysteria

The Egyptians believed that the uterus could become dislodged and wader throughout a woman's body, interfering with her other organs. The Greeks also held to this same theory and named this order. These days, _______ is used to refer to physiological symptoms that probably are the result of psychological processes.

Maladaptive

The four Ds make up mental health professionals' definition of behaviors or feelings as abnormal.

Witchcraft

The power of the Catholic Church was threatened during the middle ages and interpreted these threats in terms of heresy and Satanism. The inquisition was established originally to rid the Earth of religious heretics, but eventually those practicing witchcraft or Satanism also became the focus. Many psychiatric historians have argued that people accused of witchcraft must have been mentally ill, and their confessions of speaking or acting with the devil may have been delusions or hallucinations, which are signs of psychological disorders.

Abnormal psychology

The study of people who suffer metal, emotional, and often physical pain, often referred to as psychopathology.

Behaviorism

The study of the impact of reinforcements and punishments on behavior.

Psychoanalysis

The study of the unconscious.

Cultural relativism

The view that there are no universal standards or rules for labeling a behavior abnormal, instead, behaviors can be labeled abnormal only relative to cultural norms.

Yin and Yang

This was the cornerstone idea for ancient Chinese medicine. The human body was said to contain these forces which confronted and complemented each other. If the two forces were in balance, the individual was healthy. If not illness, including insanity, could result. For example, excited insanity was considered the result of an excessive positive force.

Cognitions

Thought processes that influence behavior and emotion.

Private asylums in the 18th century

Typically established and run by people who thought that abnormal behaviors were medical illnesses. For example, Benjamin Rush believed that abnormal behavior was caused by excessive blood in the brain and prescribed bleeding the patient. Although the theories from the Middle Ages had been decried, this did not necessarily mean that patients were treated better.

Dysfunction

When behaviors thoughts, and feelings interfere with the person's ability to function in daily life, to hold a job, or to form close relationships.