Abnormal Psychology 127A (1.18.

17)

 Email: amrashtian@hotmail.com
 Chapter 1: Abnormal Behavior in Historical Context
 People have at one point in their life have suffered (a continuum)
 People that are suffering don’t want you to agree with them; more or
less they want us to understand, acknowledge, and accept their problem
(in this situation -> disorders and mental illness)
 Two main goals in therapy: decrease a patient’s symptoms and improve
their quality of life
 Need to understand that people are not a disorder
o We have to change the way we talk about them (people are not
their disorder)
 Abnormal behavior defined – a psychological dysfunction associated
with distress or impairment in functioning that is not typical or culturally
expected
 MDs mainly the ones that prescribe medications, whereas in some states
PsyDs and PhDs have prescription privileges similar to MDs
 Clinical Depression of Abnormal Behavior
o Prevalence - # of people who have the disorder
o Incidence - # of new cases (during a year)
o Onset of Disorders
 Acute (quickly) v. Insidious (slow, building)
o Prognosis – Treatment
 Good v. Guarded
 Causation, Treatment, and Outcome
 o Etiology
 What contributes to the development of
psychopathology?
 Gives insight to clients (based on behavior, genetics,
environment, etc.)
o Treatment outcome research
 How do we know that we have helped?
 Research assessments (surveys, questionnaires, etc.)
 Ask the patient themselves
 Limited in specifying actual causes of disorders
 The criteria of the researcher is limited to the
specific disorder that is being examined
 Historical Conceptions of Abnormal Behavior
o 3 dominant traditions
 Supernatural
 Biological
 Psychological
o Supernatural
 Deviant behavior (Good v. Evil)
 Demons, Witch, Religious Omens
 Treatments -> usually torturing or death
 The moon and the stars
 Paracelsus
 Lunatic -> still used today to describe someone crazy
o Biological
 Hippocrates: Abnormal Behavior as a Physical Disease

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  Hysteria “The Wandering Uterus”
 Galen extends Hippocrates work
 Humoral theory of mental illness
o Blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm
 General Paresis (Syphilis) and the biological link with
madness
 Several unusual psychological and behavioral
symptoms
o Pasteur -> discovered the cause (a bacteria)
 Led to penicillin as a successful treatment
 Bolstered the view that mental illness = physical
illness
 John Grey and the Reformers
 Deinstitutionalization
o Consequences of the Biological Tradition
 Development of biological treatments
 Consequences of the biological treatments
 Emil Kraeplin
 Diagnosis and Classification
 Developed a diagnostic classification symptom to
help determine disorder or disease
o The psychological tradition
 Psychosocial approaches
 The rise of moral therapy -> need to treat people with
dignity and respect
 Philippe Pinel – pushed for treating people with
mental illnesses with respect

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 Psychoanalytic Theory
o Freudian Theory of the structure and the function of the mind
 Mesmer (father of hypnosis)
o Structure of the mind
 Id (pleasure principle -> instant gratification)
 Ego (reality principle -> logical and rational)
 Superego (morality -> Keeps Id and Ego in balance; “the
good angel on your shoulder”)
o Defense Mechanisms: Ego loses the battle with the Id and
superego)
 Usually when we have anxiety
 Trying to push back the anxiety
o Psychosexual Stages of Development
 Later Developments in Psychoanalytic Thought
o Anna Freud and Self-psychology
 Emphasized influence of the ego in defining behavior
o Klein, Kernberg, and Object Relations Theory
 Emphasized how children incorporate (introject) objects
 Objects – images, memories, and values of S.O.
o Neo-Freudians: Departures from Freudian thought
 De-emphasized the sexual core of Freud’s theory
 The talking cure
o Examine transference and counter transference issues
 Client transfers problems to someone else (transference)
 Therapist transfers problems onto their client (counter-
transference)

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  Supervision of therapist’s actions from a superior in
order to avoid expressing therapist’s problems to
client
 Humanistic Theory
o Major Themes
 People are basically good
 Self-actualization
 Unconditional positive regard
o Humanistic theory uses a lot of reflection (no strong evidence
that humanistic therapies work)
 The behavioral model
o Classical Conditioning (Pavlov’s Dog)
 Unconditioned response, Unconditioned stimulus
 Add neutral stimulus
 Conditioned response, Neutral (now Conditioned) stimulus
o Systematic desensitization
o Operant Conditioning (Thorndike, BF Skinner)
 Positive/Negative punishment/reinforcement
o Learning traditions influenced the development of behavior
therapy
 Has most validity in current psychology
 Present: An integrative approach
o Must consider reciprocal relations between everything going on
with you