The Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries - Sreya Khastgir , 114396

            

  

Abnormal psychology is  a branch of psychology which studies unusual patterns of behavior ,emotion and thinking which is often misunderstood as mental disorder. The course of evolution of this subject is often marked by advancements and great contributions made by various psychologists.

There were a lot advances made in the nineteenth and twentieth century to understand and treat individuals with mental disorder. In the initial period of nineteenth century, proper treatments for disorder were not available. There were some mental hospitals which were taken care by ordinary men. In the later period of the nineteenth century asylums were established which provided proper medical treatments. In these asylums, the patient lived under difficult conditions. People considered these asylums to be fearful and mysterious place and nothing was done to change the mindset of these people.The major progresses were made during this period.Dorothea Dix founded the mental hygiene movement in USA.This movement focused on the physical well-being of the patients with mental disorder.Clifford Beers started a campaign to change the attitude of people towards mental patients.With the efforts of Clifford Beers , advances were made in the establishment of mental hospitals to provide services to people who suffered from disorders such as schizophrenia , depression ,severe alcoholism , tertiary syphilis and paresis.During this period,the National Institutes of Mental Health was organized which provided support for research and training through psychiatric and clinical programs.An act called Hill-Burton Act was passed to fund community mental health hospitals.During this period , there was a great need to make changes and improvements in medical treatments provided by the psychiatric hospitals.Increase in the knowledge of anatomy , physiology, neurology, chemistry,and medicine led to the identification of biological ,or organic pathology. Kraepelin developed the first diagnostic system and classified hundreds of medical disorders.

Mesmerism was a technique developed by Franz Anton Mesmer  to understand psychological causation of mental disorder. He believed that the planets affected a universal magnetic fluid in the body , whose distribution determined the heath or diseases. For finding cures for the mental diseases Mesmer came up with the conclusion that people possessed magnetic forces that could be used to influence the distribution of the fluid. He opened up a clinic where he all kinds of diseases by using “animal magnetism”. His technique led to increase in interest in hypnosis to cure the diseases. During the end of the nineteenth century , clinics were developed with a lot of advancements to study abnormal behavior.

Amborse August Liebeault, a French physician who practised in the town of Nancy, used hypnosis successfully in practice.Hippolyte Bernheim became interested in the relationship between hysteria and hypnosis.Both Bernheim and Liebeault worked together to develop the hypothesis that hypnotism and hysteria were related.Jean Charcot who experimented with some of the phenomena described by mesmerists, disagreed with findings of the Nancy School.

The second major step was taken by Sigmund Freud , he developed the theory of psychopathology which is called psychoanalysis. He used this method to study and treat patients.This approach led to the discovery of the unconscious – the portion of the mind that contains experiences of which a person is unaware.The methods used to understand the unconscious and conscious thought process was free association i.e. having patients talk freely about themselves , thereby providing information about their feelings , motives etc and the other method was dream analysis i.e. having patients record and describe their dreams.

Wilhelm Wundt established the first experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig.Wilhelm influenced early contributors to the empirical study abnormal behavior , they followed his methods and applied some to study clinical problems.

The behavioral perspective focused on the role of learning in human behavior.The behaviorists believed that free association and dream analysis was not enough to understand behavior , because it is not observable in nature.

Classical conditioning is a form of learning in which a neutral stimulus is paired repeatedly with an unconditioned stimulus that naturally elicits an unconditioned behaviour. Ivan Pavlov and Watson developed the behavioral perspective which focuses on the fact that learning plays an important role in human behavior .This had implication for explaining and treating abnormal behavior.

E L Thorndike and B F Skinner  explored a different kind of conditioning one in which in the consequence of behavior influences behavior.This type of learning came to be known as operant conditioning.

Reference 

• Abnormal Psychology by Carson and Butcher
• www.wikipedia.com
• www.google.com