CHAPTER 15
Abnormal Psychology
WINIFRED B. MAHER AND BRENDAN A. MAHER
303PRELIMINARY ISSUES 303
Popular Myths of Psychopathology 304
Early Attempts at Classification 305
Legal Views of the Mentally Ill 306
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE
CLASSICAL PERIOD 307
Classical Medical Theory 307
Medical and Other Treatments 307
THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 310
Hospitals 311
The Anatomy of Melancholy 311
From Animal Spirits to Animal Electricity 312
From Magnetism and Mesmerism to Hypnosis 313
Moral Management and the Association Model 314
EIGHTEENTH TO MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY 315
Asylums of the Era 315
Advent of Nosological Systems 315
Brain Pathology Model of Psychopathology and
Nervous Diseases 316
Phrenology 317
Brain Hemisphere Theories 317
LATE NINETEENTH INTO TWENTIETH
CENTURY 318
Theory of the Evolution of the Brain
and Psychopathology 318
Social Darwinism 319
Degeneracy Theory 319
Eugenics 320
Early Role of Hypnosis 320
Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis 322
Morton Prince and Multiple Personality 324
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 325
Treatment Approaches 325
Experimental Psychopathology 326
Typologies of Mental Illness 328
Organic versus Functional Psychoses 329
Theories of Origin and Research in
Antisocial Personality 330
Behaviorism and Behavior Therapy 330
Recent Approaches 330
Progress in the Biological Understanding
of Psychopathology 332
INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 333
REFERENCES 333In this chapter we present a history of abnormal psychology,
now commonly called psychopathology. This must be a par-
tial history, because, although contemporary psychopathol-
ogy science and practice are amply archived in scientific
journals, epidemiological surveys, hospital reports, and gov-
ernment statistics, little of the field’s history is well docu-
mented. Modern scientific method was not applied to the
investigation of disease until the nineteenth century, and it
was applied even later to the study of psychopathology.
Knowledge was authenticated by the teacher’s experience,
not by producing objective empirical evidence, impartially
gathered, and opened to criticism. Theories about psy-
chopathology and the ways to treat it during earlier periods of
history were developed by physicians, philosophers, theolo-
gians, and lawyers. Our knowledge is derived from their
extant writings, medical treatises, church and legal docu-
ments, historical narratives, diaries, and literature.
PRELIMINARY ISSUESHistorians of this field face several major problems, includ-
ing the definitions of psychopathology and the availability
and authenticity of information about the past. Also, any writ-
ten history of psychopathology must consider how culture
and class difference affect definition and treatment of psy-
chopathology, as well as the influences of contemporary
external factors in other fields, principally medicine, science,
and law.
Broadly speaking, practical definitions of psychopathol-
ogy include behavior that (a) appears injurious to the interests
of the person concerned and/or to others, (b) lacks a rational
relationship to the realities of the environment in which it
occurs, and (c) has behavioral characteristics that deviate sig-
nificantly from the norm of the culture. What may appear
pathologically deviant in one culture may appear desirable in