ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY • Behaviors can be labeled abnormal only

relative to cultural norms

• Study of people who suffer mental,
emotional, and often physical pain • Honors norms and traditions of
different cultures.
• Otherwise known as psychopathology
HOW MUCH INFLUENCE DOES CULTURE HAVE
In our future practice of psychology, we will be
ON INDIVIDUALS?
working with individuals to help scientifically
recognize the following associated with mental • The way people express emotions
disorders.
• Willingness to admit certain types of
• Problematic emotions behaviors or feelings

• Cognitions • Types of treatments deemed acceptable

or helpful for people exhibiting
• Behaviors
abnormal behaviors
• It helps us understand how an
4 D’S OF ABNORMALITY
abnormal mind works, diagnose the
disease, and predict the progress of the • Dysfunction
disease
• Distress
• A correct understanding of abnormality
• Deviance
can check, prevent, and cure the
disease. • Dangerousness
MENTAL ILLNESS DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR
• Behaviors, thoughts, or feelings viewed Behaviors, thoughts and feelings become
as pathological or abnormal if they are dysfunctional when they interfere with the
symptoms of this person’s
• Implication of a disease that should • Ability to function in daily life
show up on some sort of psychological
test DISTRESS

CULTURAL NORMS • Behaviors and feelings cause distress to

the individual or to others around
• Fasting: normal in certain religions, him/her
common ritual of cleansing and
penitence • Tremendous emotional and even
physical pain
• Play a large role in defining abnormality
DEVIANT BEHAVIORS
• How people treat the dead differs
Influenced by cultural norms
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
• Hearing voices
• There are no universal standards or
rules for labeling a behavior abnormal • Trying to conform to socially
defined norms (thinness).
DANGEROUS
• Behaviors and feelings which are of
potential harm to the individual
• Suicidal gestures
• Excessive aggression
MALADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR
• Interfere with daily functioning
• Cause suffering
• Highly unusual
• Potentially dangerous
THE 4 D’S OF ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
• Dysfunctional: behaviors and feelings
are dysfunctional when they interfere
with a person’s ability to function in
daily life, to hold a job, or form
relationships
• Distress: Behaviors and feelings that
cause distress to the individual or to
others around him or her are
considered abnormal
• Deviant: Highly deviant behaviors like
chronic lying or stealing lead to
judgments of abnormality
• Dangerous: Behaviors and feelings that
are potentially harmful to an individual
or the individuals around them are seen
as abnormal
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ABNORMALITY
Biological Theories
• Viewed abnormal behavior as similar to
physical diseases
• Caused by a breakdown of systems in
the body
• Appropriate cure is restoration of bodily
health
Supernatural Theories:
• Abnormal behaviors as a results of
• Divine intervention
• Curses
• Demonic possession
• Personal Sin
• To rid a person of perceived affliction
• Religious rituals
• Exorcisms
• Confessions
• Atonement
Psychological Theories:
• Abnormal behavior is a result of
• Traumas (bereavement or
chronic stress)
• Rest and relaxation
• Change of environment
• Certain types of herbal medicine
ANCIENT THEORIES
DRIVING AWAY EVIL SPIRITS
• Possession of evil spirits thought to be
the cause of abnormal behavior
• Typical treatment: Exorcism
• Shamans/healers:
• recite prayers or
incantations,
• try to talk spirits out of
the body or
 • make the body an
uncomfortable place for
spirits to reside
• Kill the person
STONE AND MIDDLE AGES
• Trephination: used to drill holes in the
skull to allow evil spirits to depart; still
in question another theory is that it was
used to remove blood clots (stone
weapons or other medical purposes)
• Trephine: tool used for drilling
• People who were seeing or hearing
things that were not real
• People who were chronically sad
ANCIENT CHINA: BALANCING YIN AND YANG
• Nei Ching (Classic of Internal Medicine)
written around 2674 BCE by Huang Ti
(legendary third emperor of China)
• Known as the Yellow Emperor, yellow
denoting earth
YIN AND YANG
• When two forces were in balance, the
individual was healthy
• If not, illness included insanity could
occur
CHINESE MEDICAL PHILOSOPHY
• Human emotions were controlled by
internal organs
• When vital air flowed on one of these
organs, an individual experienced a
particular emotion.
• Air flowed on heart: joy
• Air flowed on lungs: sorrow
• Air flowed on liver: anger
• Air flowed on spleen: worry
• Air flowed on kidney: fear
ANCIENT EGYPT
• Papyri of Egypt and Mesopotamia
• Kahun Papyrus: oldest one dates from
about 1900 BCE
• Lists number of disorders, each
followed by a physician’s judgment of
the cause of the disorder and the
appropriate treatment
• Treatment included use of strong-
smelling substances to drive uterus
back into its proper place
WANDERING UTERUS
• A woman who loves bed; she does not
rise and she does not shake it
• Uterus could become dislodged and
wander throughout a woman’s body,
interfering with her organs
GREEKS
• Named the disorder hysteria: from the
Greek word hystera, which means
uterus
• Hysteria used to refer to psychological
symptoms that probably are the result
of psychological processes
WRITINGS ON PEOPLE ACTING
ABNORMALLY

• Hippocrates: described the case of the

common phobia

• Man could not walk alongside a

cliff, pass over a bridge, or jump
over even a shallow ditch

• without feeling unable to

control his limbs and having his
vision impaired

ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR AS AFFLICTION

FROM THE GODS

• Roman God of healing and medicine ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR AS CLASSIFIED BY

HIPPOCRATES
• Those afflicted retreated to temples
honoring the god where priests held • Epilepsy
healing ceremonies
• Mania
• Socrates and Plato argued that some
• Melancholia
forms abnormal behavior were divine
and could be the source of great literary • Brain fever
and prophetic gifts.
DISEASES INCLUDING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
HIPPOCRATES
• Caused by imbalances in the body’s
• Often regarded as the father of essential humors
medicine
• Observation included listening to their
• Argued abnormal behavior was like dreams
other diseases of the body
TREATMENT OF ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
• Body was composed of 4 humors.
• Physiological and intrusive
HUMORS
• Bleed a patient to rid them of
• Yellow Bile excess blood
• Black bile • Rest, relaxation, change of climate or
scenery, change of diet, living a
• Blood
temperate life
• Phlegm
• Confine relative to home

• State could take rights away from

people declared insane

• Cannot get married

 • Cannot own property or sell
property

• If poor, roam the streets if not

violent

• If violent, locked away

MEDIEVAL VIEWS

• Middle Ages (around 400 to 1400 CE):

backward thinking, dominated by
obsession with supernatural forces

• Witchcraft and witches

accepted as read but
considered nuisances

• Severe shock: causes of bizarre

behaviors

WITCHCRAFT

• Catholic church threatened by

breakdown in feudalism and rebellions

• Church interpreted threats in terms of

heresy and Satanism

--- ---

75 passing score

Uploaded by ma’am, and come up with a

questions. -