Contents:
1. Opening statement/ introductory
statement
2. Grounds or points for justification
3. Conclusion
Different Perspectives on Abnormal
Behavior:
Historical Perspective
Contemporary Perspective:
-Biological
-Psychological
-Sociocultural
-Biopsychosocial
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
* Concepts of abnormal behavior have been
shaped by the prevailing worldview of the
particular era.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
- The Demonological model:
* Abnormal behavior was taken as a sign
of possession by evil spirits.
* Trephination : drilling of the skull to
provide an outlet for those spirits
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Medical model: Hippocrates (460 -377 BC)
That illness of the body and mind were the
result of natural causes, not possession by
supernatural spirits.
Believed that health of body depended on the
balance of humors, or vital fluids in the body:
phlegm, black bile, blood, and yellow bile.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Medical model: Hippocrates (460 -377 BC)
Imbalance of humors accounted for abnormal
behavior:
excess of phlegm: lethargic/ sluggish phlegmatic
person
excess of black bile: cause of depression melancholia
excess of blood: leads to cheerful and sanguine
confident tendency
excess of yellow bile: makes people choleric
“bilious” or quick-tempered
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Medieval Times (476 C.E through 1450 C.E.)
* Belief in supernatural causes, especially the
doctrine of possession increased in its
influence
* possession of spirits was part of the
teachings of the Roman Catholic Church
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Medieval Times (476 C.E through 1450 C.E.)
* The church’s treatment of choice for
possession was exorcism.
* Exorcism includes prayer, incantations,
waving a cross at the victim, beating and
flogging, even starving the victim.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Emergence of Asylums (late 15th and early 16th
century):
Former leprosariums were converted to
asylums that gave refuge to beggars as well as
the mentally disturbed.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Emergence of Asylums (late 15th and early 16th
century):
Conditions in asylums were appalling:
residents were chained to their beds and left
to lie in their own waste or to wander about
unassisted.
St. Mary.s of Bethlehem Hospital – “bedlam”
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Reform Movement & Moral Therapy (late 18th
and early 19th century):
Mentally disturbed people were regarded as
threats to society, not as sick people in need
of treatment.
Frenchmen Pussin and Pinel argued that
people who behave abnormally suffer from
diseases and should be treated humanely.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Reform Movement & Moral Therapy (late 18th
and early 19th century):
Creation of mental hospital in Paris
Improved conditions of facility was observed;
patients were left unchained and treated with
kindness
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Reform Movement & Moral Therapy (late 18th
and early 19th century):
Moral therapy: belief that providing humane
treatment in a relaxed and decent
environment could restore functioning.
Similar reforms were seen in the United
States at this same period
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Later half of 19th century:
Conditions of mental wards worsened.
Patterns of abnormal behaviors were believed
to be incurable
Mental institutions grew in size
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Later half of 19th century:
Movement towards
deinstitutionalizations and community-
based treatment
1950s: development and introduction of
phenothiazines
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Biological Perspective:
German physician Wilhelm Griesinger: that
abnormal behavior was rooted in diseases of
the brain
Emil Kraeplin wrote an influential textbook
in psychiatry n 1883 and he likened mental
disorders to physical diseases.
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Biological Perspective:
Adopting a medical model not necessarily
mean that every mental disorder is a product
of defective biology, BUT it is useful to
classify patterns of abnormal behavior as
disorders that can be identified on the basis of
their distinctive symptoms.
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Biological Perspective:
Kraeplelin classified 2 groups of mental
disorder:
1. Dementia praecox: now, schizophrenia
2. Manic-depressive insanity: now, bipolar
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Biological Perspective:
Medical model gained support in the late 19th
century with the discovery that advanced
state of syphilis – in which the bacterium that
causes the disease directly invades the brain –
led to a form of disturbed behavior called
general paresis: impaired memory
functioning and judgment; personality and
mood changes
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Biological Perspective:
Discovery of Alzheimer's disease also further
supported the medical model
Much of the terminology in abnormal
psychology has been “medicalized”: mental
health, syndrome, diagnosis, patient, mental
patient, prognosis, treatment, therapy, relapse,
remission.
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Psychological Perspective:
Some scientists argued that organic factors
alone could not explain the many forms of
abnormal behavior.
Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893)
experimented with hypnosis in treating
hysteria (paralysis or numbness that cannot
be explained by any underlying physical
cause).
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Psychological Perspective:
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Psychological Perspective:
Freud : if hysterical symptoms could be made
to disappear or appear through hypnosis (via
suggestion of ideas), then it must be
psychological, not biological in origin.
Psychodynamic model
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Psychological Perspective:
The case of Anna O
-with hysteria
-was encouraged to talk
about symptoms
-symptoms disappeared once the emotions
were brought to the surface
-“catharsis” (discharge of feelings); “talk cure”
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
Other psychological perspectives:
behavioral, humanistic, cognitive models
followed
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Sociocultural Perspective
It is taking the broader social context in
looking at abnormal behavior
Sociocultural theorists believe the causes of
abnormal behavior may be found in the
failures of society rather than in the person.
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Sociocultural Perspective
Unemployment, poverty, family breakdown,
injustice, lack of opportunity are examples of
the ills in society.
Sociocultural theorist argue that once a
person is called “mentally ill “, the label is
hard to remove and they are stigmatized and
marginalized.
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
The Biopsychosocial Perspective
Abnormal behavior is best understood by
taking into account multiple causes
representing biological, psychological, and
sociocultural domains.
Also called interactionist model
END OF CLASS