CHAPTER 2Historical and Contemporary Views of Abnormal Behavior

Ancient views of abnormal behavior

• Possession by spirits, demons, or gods• Ancient treatments:

• Trepination (Stone Age)• Surgery and prayers (ancient Egypt)• Variations on exorcisms

Ancient Greece and Rome

• Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.E.)• Mental disorders have physical

causes• “humors”-four types of body

fluids• Basic classifications of mental

disorders

• Galen (130-200 C.E.)• Refined physical causes of

mental disorders

Ancient China

• Chung Ching (200 C.E.)• Built on traditional Chinese concepts of physical balance

• Physical and mental health interrelated

Middle Ages (500-1500 C.E.)

• Middle East• Scientific approach maintained• Mental hospitals established

• Europe• Focus returns to supernatural causes

• Exorcisms and witch hunts

• China• Shift to supernatural causes

Humanitarian Approaches: Europe

• Europe (approx 1500-1800)• Return to scientific view• Early asylums- terrible conditions

• Prisons

• Pinel (1792)• Improved conditions in Paris hospital

Humanitarian Approaches: America

• Dorothea Dix (1802-1887)• Mental Hygiene movement• Humane hospitals

• Clifford Beers (1876-1943)• Publicized problems with hospitals

Deinstitutionalization

• 1950’s-1970’s• Psychoactive medications• Treatment in community• Problems: insufficient community resources

Contemporary views

• Development of mental disorders classification system• Kraepelin (1856-1926)

• Dementia praecox• Manic depression

• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)

• Biological discoveries• Psychological causation• Experimental psychological research