Trishna Chettri (1114331)

 There is no universal agreement about what we mean by abnormality or disorder. No one element of abnormality is sufficient in and of itself to define or determine abnormality, but the greater the similarity between the given persons behavior and the elements of abnormality described in The World Around Us 1.2 the more likely it is that the person is abnormal or mentally disordered in some way.

Historical Views Of Abnormal Behavior

The Stone Age cave dwellers about half a million years ago found the earliest makeshift treatment of mental disorders. "Trephining" is the form of treatment the early shaman or medicine man gave the mentally ill which probably consisted of individuals complaining about severe headache and convulsive attacks. Through history though there have been milestones in the views of abnormal behavior.
1. Demonology, Gods and Magic.
2. Hippocrates and his pre-historic medical concepts
3. Early Philosophical Conceptions of consciousness and Mental discovery
4. Later Greek and Roman thought
5. Abnormality during the Middle Ages.

Towards Humanitarian Approaches

During the latter part of the middle emphasizing the importance of specifically human interest and concerns began- a movement that can be loosely referred to as “humanism “. Consequently, the superstitious beliefs that had hindered the understanding and therapeutic treatment of mental disorders began to be challenged.

The various milestones in this approach are:

1.       The Resurgence of Scientific Questioning in Europe

2.       The Establishment of Early Asylum and Shrines

3.       Humanitarian Reform

CONTEMPORARY VIEWS OF ABNORMAL BEAVIOUR

Great technological discoveries occurred both home and abroad in the latter years of the nineteenth century. There are four dimensions in abnormal psychology that spanned the nineteenth and twentieth century’s and generated powerful influences on our contemporary perspectives in abnormal behaviour:

                                i.            Biological discoveries.

                              ii.            Development of a classification system for mental disorders.

                            iii.            The emergence of psychological causation views and,

                            iv.            Experimental psychological research developments.

BIOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES:  Establishing the Link between the Brain and Mental Disorder

The development of physical and mental diseases took place in this period.  An important biomedical breakthrough which came with the discovery of organic factors fundamental “general paresis-syphilis of the brain” a severe “mental illness” (Robert C.Carson, 2011) of those days general paresis generated paralysis and insanity and normally caused death within a span of 2-5 years. This scientific discovery is a combined effort of various scientists and has been researched for about a century.

GENERAL PARESIS AND SYPHILIS:

In 1825 a cure for general paresis was discovered. , when the French physician A. L. J. Bayle talked about general paresis being a specific type of mental illness. He proved his points with various accurate descriptions of the symptom pattern and convinced that general paresis was a distinct mental disorder. Only after some years in 1897 “the Viennese psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebbing conducted experiments with inoculation of paretic patients with matter of syphilitic sore.” (Robert C.Carson, 2011) As none of the patients who underwent this experiment developed secondary symptoms thus came up to the conclusion that they were previously infected. Eventually leading to the relationship between general paresis and syphilis.

Ultimately in 1917, “Julius von Wagner-Jauregg, chief of the psychiatric clinic of the University of Vienna,” (Robert C.Carson, 2011) familiarised the treatment for malaria. As malaria is associated with high fever and thus would kill all the bacteria’s involved. He conducted this experiment by infecting nine paretic symptoms in three patients and apparent recovery in the other three. Now, of course there are penicillin’s for the treatment of malaria syphilis, but the first method ever used for its treatment was by medical science thinking it to be a mental disorder. Abnormal Psychology has come a long way through- from superstition to scientific proof giving hopes in the medical community that organic bases could be found for all the diseases.

Brain pathology as a casual factor:

Scientists in this era began to focus on the “diseased body organs as the cause of physical ailments” (Robert C.Carson, 2011) and they believed that this diseased organ to be brain. Various scientists such as Albert von Haller focused on the importance of brain in mental functions and also studied the brains of the mentally ill people. Whereas, “Alois Alzheimer and other investigators established the brain pathology in cerebral arteriosclerosis and in the senile mental disorders” (Robert C.Carson, 2011) ultimately in the twentieth century the “organic pathology” underlying the diseases caused by the presence of toxic substances e.g. led various types of mental retardation and mental illness were discovered.

The development of a classification system:

A scientist named Emil Kraepelin had a major role to play in the biological viewpoint.  “His book does not only deal with the importance of brain pathology in mental disorder disorders but also made several related contributions that helped establish this viewpoint” (Robert C.Carson, 2011) the main contribution being the system of classification of mental disorder. Which became the predecessor of today’s DSM-IV-TR. In which he noted that certain symptom pattern occurs together so that they can be grouped in one group of mental disorder.

Kraepelin viewed every type of mental disorder to be different from each other and thought that the course of each was “predictable” and “predetermined” which can be seen in the case of measles.

Caution Views: Establishing the psychological Basis of Mental Disorder.

Regardless of laying significance on the biological research, the psychological factors were progressing as well. The first step was taken by the well known psychologist Sigmund Freud who during the five decades observed, treated and wrote a “comprehensive theory of psychopathology that emphasized the inner dynamic of unconscious motive.” (Robert C.Carson, 2011)  The means to study and treat patients came to be known as psychoanalysis. This can be related to hypnosis. “Hypnosis is an “induced state of relaxation” in which a person is highly open to suggestions” (Robert C.Carson, 2011).

Mesmerism:

“Franz Anton Mesmer an Austrian physician added to the development of “Paracelsus” about the influence of planets on humans. He believed that the planets had an affected our magnetic body fluids, the distribution of which determined health or disease.” (Robert C.Carson, 2011).

He concluded saying that “all people possessed magnetic force that could be used to persuade the distribution of the fluid in other people which effects cure” (Robert C.Carson, 2011). He practiced his views in Vienna and several other cities. He opened a clinic in Paris where he treated all kinds of ailments using animal magnetism. Where he placed them in a dark room around a tub containing a mixture of various chemicals and iron rods jotting out and these were applied to the affected areas, following this method he treated diseases such as hysteria, paralysis. He also demonstrated many phenomena’s that were later linked with the use of hypnosis. Mesmer was however forced to leave Paris and his methods were a subject of debate for a long period of time where two distinct groups were formed.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH TRADITION: Experimental Psychology.

The first experimental psychology laboratory was set up at the University of Leipzig by William Wundt.

“The Behavioural Perspective- this perspective runs around a central theme of “the role of learning in human behaviour.” (Robert C.Carson, 2011). At first this was developed through research in a laboratory and not in a clinical practice with distributed individuals, its implication for explaining and treating maladaptive behaviour soon became evident”. (Robert C.Carson, 2011)

Classical Conditioning:

Classical Conditioning was discovered by Ivan Pavlov, when he conducted his experiment with his dog. Classical Conditioning is “a form of learning in which neutral stimulus is paired repeatedly with an unconditioned stimulus that naturally elicits an unconditioned behaviour” (Robert C.Carson, 2011) his experiment was conducted to see if a response would occur with the presence of an unconditioned stimulus. The dog initially salivated at the time when the food was presented along with a bell ringing, later the dog salivated when the bell was heard but no food presented. Thus we can say that the dog has been conditioned. 

Operant Conditioning:

 E.L. Thorndike, B.F Skinner were exploring another kind of behaviour, where, “The consequence of behaviour influences Behaviour” (Robert C.Carson, 2011) “Behaviour that operates on the environment may be instrumental in producing certain outcomes, and those outcome, in turn determine the likelihood that the behaviour will be repeated on similar occasions.” (Robert C.Carson, 2011) Here, he talks about reinforcement and punishment. Where, the good behaviours are rewarded and the awful one punished. This was initially known as instrumental learning. (Robert C.Carson, 2011)