PSYCO239 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Tardive Dyskinesia, Basal Ganglia, Family Therapy

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO239
• Professor: Jaylene Brinker

Document Summary

People with schizophrenia used to be institutionalize in public mental hospitals. Hospitals were located in isolated areas to protect patients form the stresses of daily life and to offer them a healthy psychological environment. The most common pattern of decline was called the social breakdown syndrome, which involved extreme withdrawal, anger, and physical aggressiveness, and loss of interest. Milieu therapy: the premise that institutions can help patients that make clinical progress by creating social climate that promotes productive activity, self-respect, and individual responsibility. The in-patient care of the mentally ill should be humane: taking place in a setting that is continuous with the society from which the patient comes. Token economy: based on operant conditioning principles, token economies are used in institutions to change the behaviour of patients with schizophrenia. Patients are rewarded when they behave in socially acceptable ways. Milieu therapy and token economies have helped improve the personal care and self-image of patients, problem areas worsened by institutionalizations.