Abnormal

Behavior in
Historical
Context
Mark Lester Aclag
Vanessa Lumauig
Dyla Mitz Vitasa
What is Psychological
Disorder?
also known as Abnormal Behavior, is a
psychological dysfunction within an individual
associated with distress or impairment in functioning
and a response that is not typical, or culturally
accepted

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Psychological Disorder
Dysfunction
Distress
Deviance
Danger

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Psychological Dysfunction
• refers to a breakdown in cognitive, emotional, or
behavioral functioning

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Personal Distress or
Impairment
• Difficulty performing appropriate and expected roles.

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Deviance
• Atypical or not culturally expected reponse
• Reaction is outside cultural norms

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Danger
• Possible/ hurting someone or his/herself

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DSM-5
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Fifth Edition
• The most widely accepted definition of disorder
that describes behavioral, psychological, or biological
dysfunctions that are unexpected in their cultural
context and associated with present distress and
impairment in functioning, or increased risk of suffering,
death, pain, or impairment.

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Psychopathology
It is the scientific study of psychological disorders.
Within this field are specially trained professionals
including (Mental Health Professionals):

Counseling Psychologist - tend to study and treat

adjustment and vocational issues encountered by relatively
healthy individuals
Clinical Psychologist - usually concentrate on more severe
psychological disorders
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Psychiatrist - investigate the nature and causes of
psychological disorder, often from biological point of view,
make diagnoses, ang offer treatments.
Psychiatric Social Workers - collecting information relevant
to the social and family situation of the individual with
psychological disorder
Psychiatric Nurses - specialize in the care and treatment of
patients with psychological disorder, usually in hospital as
part of a treatment team.
Scientist-practitioners - mental health practitioner that takes
a scientific approach to their clinical work

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Clinical Description
• represents the unique combination of behaviors,
thoughts, and feelings that make up a specific disorder

CLINICAL - refers both to the types of problems or

disorders that you would find in a clinic or hospital and to
the activities connected with assessment and treatment.

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PRESENT - indicating why the person came to the clinic
PREVALENCE - how many people in the population as a whole
have the disorder
INCIDENCE - how many new cases occur during given period
COURSE - how long is the disorder
*Chronic Course - lasts a long time or forever
*Episodic Course - likely to recover within a few months,
but then suffers a recurrence of disorder at a later time
*Time-limited Course - disorder will improve without
treatment in a relatively short period

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ONSET - when it was started
-Acute Onset - begins suddenly
-insidious Onset - develops gradually over an extended peior
of time

PROGNOSIS - doctor's prediction as to how a condition is going to

progress, whether it will get better or worse
- when will they recover?
-Prognosis is Good - there is a little chance for recovery
(someone with a good or excellent prognosis is probably going to get
better).
-Prognosis is Guarded - means that the case could either get
better or worse, but the situation is more pessimistic than optimistic.
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Historical Conceptions of
Abnormal Behavior
• Divinities, demons, spirits, or other phenomena such as
magnetic fields or the moon or the stars are the driving
forces behind the supernatural model.
• biological model
• psychological model

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Supernatural Tradition
DEVIANT BEHAVIOR has been considered a reflection of
the battle between good and evil.
• All physical and mental disorders are considered the
work of the devil.

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DEMONS AND WITCHES
• began to believe more strongly in the existence and
power of demons and witches.
• people increasingly turned to magic and sorcery to
solve their problems

TREATMENTS:
Exorcism - religious rituals were performed in an effort to
rid the victim of evil spirits
Shaving pattern of a cross in the hair

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Stress and Melancholy
• Insanity was a natural phenomenon, caused by mental
or emotional stress, and that it was curable
• Mental Depression were recognized as illness
• Despair and Lethargy were often identified by church
with the sin of acedia or sloth

TREATMENTS:
baths, rest, sleeps, and healthy and happy environment

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Mass Hysteria
• also called as mob psychology (in modern day)
• characterized by large-scale outbreaks of bizarre
behavior.
• before it is called Saint Vitus’s Dance or Tarantism

• emotion contagion - expeerience of emotion spreading

to those around us

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The Moon and Stars
PARACELSUS
• rejected notions of possessions and suggested that the
movements of the moon and stars has profound effects
on people’s psychological functioning.
• LUNATIC - derived from the latin word luna, meaning
“moon”

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Biological Tradition
• psychological disorders are biologically caused.
• Syphilis - sexually transmitted disease caused by
bacterial microorganism entering the brain, causing
delusions and other abnormal behaviors

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Hippocrates and Galen
HIPPOCRATES
• Greek physician
• father of modern western medicine
• Hippocratic Corpus
• Psychological disorders might also caused by brain
pathology or head trauma and could be influence by
heredity (genetics)

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Hippocrates and Galen
GALEN
• Roman Physician
• Hippocratic-galenic Approach - HUMORAL THEORY OF
DISORDER - assumed that normal brain functioning was
related to four bodily fluids or humors: blood, black bile,
yellow bile, and phlegm.

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Humoral Theory
BLOOD
• sanguine
• came from the heart
• describe someone who is rudy, cheerful, and optimistic

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Humoral Theory
BLACK BILE
• melancholic means depressive

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Humoral Theory
PHLEGM
• phlegmatic
• Indicates apathy and sluggishness but can also mean
being calm under stress.

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Humoral Theory
YELLOW BILE
• choleric
• hot tempered

TREATMENT:
• Bloodletting/ bleeding

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Ancient China
• focused on the movements of air or wind throughout the
body.
• mental disorders were caused by blockages of wind or the
presence of cold, dark wind (yin) as opposed to warm, life-
sustaining wind (yang)

TREATMENT:
• Acupuncture - is a form of treatment that involves inserting
very thin needles through a person's skin at specific points
on the body, to various depths. Research suggests that it
can help relieve pain, and it is used for a wide range of
other complaints.
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19th Century
• Discovery of the nature and cause of syphilis

SYPHILIS
• known as advanced syphilis
• a sexually transmitted disease caused by a bacterial
microorganism entering the brain.
• delusion of persecution and delusion of grandeur
• discover by Louis Pasteur’s Germ Theory of Disease

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John P. Grey
• most influential American psychiatrist
• causes of insanity were always PHYSICAL.

Therefore, the mentally ill patient should e treated as

physically ill.
• condition in hospitals greatly improved and they

become more humane, livable institution.

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The Development of
Biological Treatment
1930’s
• Insulin shock therapy - occasionally given to stimulate
appetite in psychotic patients who were not eating.
• abandoned because it was too dangerous, often
resulting in prolonged coma or even death.
UGO CERLETTTI AND LUCIO BINI
• treated depressed patient by sending six small shocks
directly to the brain
• electroconvulsive therapy

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1950’s
• first effective drugs for severe psychotic disorders were
developed in a systematic way.
• Opium (poppies) - used as sedatives, along with
countless herbs and folk remedies
• Neuroleptics (major tranquilizer)- used for patients
with hallucinations and controlled agitation and
aggressiveness.
• Benzodiazepines (minor tranquilizer)- reduced anxiety

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Emil Kraepelin
• founding father of modern psychiatry
• first to distinguish among various psychological
disorders, seeing that each may have a different age of
onset, time course and different cause.

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Psychological Treatment
• Moral Therapy - treaing institutionalized patients as
normally as possible in a setting that encourages normal
social interaction
• Mental Hygiene Movement - was led by Dorothea Dix to
reform prison-like asylums, but led to an influx of mental
health patients, which led to impersonal treatment due to
being understaffed.
• Psychoanalysis - first school of thought based on Sigmund
Freud's theory of structure of the mind, and the role of
unconscious processes in determining behavior

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Behaviorism - second school of thought associated with John
B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and BF Skinner; focuses on how
learning and adaptation affect the development of
psychopathology

Behavior therapy - focuses on increasing the person’s

engagement in positive or socially reinforcing activities, while
carefully measuring what the person is doing and then seeks
to increase chances for positive experience.

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End of Chapter

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