PSYC 3230 Lecture Notes - Existentialism, Reality Principle, Collective Unconscious
10 Sep 2013
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Document Summary
Difficult to define abnormality from normality, or one mental disease from another. Difficulty in making a theory that applies to many people, not just one case. Psychological theories of abnormality are often not theories in the sense used by the hard sciences. The term theory is instead often used to mean a kind of model. Nomenclature of mental disorders based on the medical model of separate diseases. Noted that certain symptoms of mental disorders occurred together. Believed that as with physical illness, it was necessary to isolate the organic cause, the specific symptoms, the specific course, and the treatment. Understand the underlying biological cause, apply treatment, symptoms would disappear. During this era, huge advances in understanding the nervous system. Brain pathology underlying some mental disorders-- cerebral arteriosclerosis, senile psychosis, some types of retardation. Promising signs that mental problems will become understood through neurological occurrences (basis)
