; Alskejf

Chapter 13: Psychological Disorders

The Demonological View

The belief that abnormal behaviour is cause by supernatural forces. Attributed deviance to the work of the devil, the notion that bizarre behaviour reflected an evil spirit’s attempt to escape from a person’s body. In order to “release the spirit, a procedure called trephination was carried out.

Trephination, was when a sharp tool was used to chisel a hole in the skull about two centimetres in diameter, this procedure did indeed result in the elimination of abnormal behaviours, as well as other.

The historical importance of discovering the cause of general paresis, characterized in its advanced stages by mental deterioration and bizarre behaviour because of massive brain deterioration caused by syphilis, was a breakthrough because it was the first demonstration that a psychological disorder was linked to an underlying physical malady

Psychological Perspectives

Freud was convinced that psychological disorders are caused by unresolved conflicts from childhood that make a person vulnerable to certain kinds of life events. These situations arouse anxiety, and the person tries to cope with the anxiety by using defence mechanisms such as:

Repression, Projection, Reaction formation, and Displacement. Some disorders, such as obsessions, phobias, and depression that do not involve a loss of contact with reality were called neuroses, and more severe disorders, such as schizophrenia, were called psychoses.

The behavioural perspective views disordered behaviours not as reflections of internal psychodynamics and unconscious conflicts, but rather as learned responsthat, like normal behaviours, are leaned through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and modelling. This perspective has influenced our understanding of how environment factors help shape abnormal behaviour.

Cognitive theorists emphasize the important rle played by people’s thoughts and perceptions about themselves and the...