Abnormal Psychology Within Any Society

Abnormal Psychology

Within any society throughout history, there have been an accepted set of rules and behaviors. Also within every society are those individuals who break those rules and present abnormal behaviors based on deep rooted psychological issues. The history of the scientific discipline of abnormal psychology began with mysticism and religious treatments of such behaviors. However, this was eventually morphed into a scientific discipline through recognizing and studying the various patterns within general categories of abnormal behaviors. Since the onset of the Twentieth century, the scientific study and treatment of abnormal behaviors has been honed down to a variety of separate and individual disciplines that aim to diagnose, study, and treat disorders of abnormal psychology as a way to better the lives of the individuals who suffer from such psychological disorders.

The era of Greek and Romans was a rich one for knowledge in general. It was during this time period that abnormal psychology began to unfold its roots within general human psychology. Greeks and Romans had identified and treated various psychological disorders including mania, dementia, delusions, and hallucinations (Comer 2006). These disorders still prevail within the field of abnormal psychology today. However the wave of knowledge ended as Europe returned into the Dark Ages. When this occurred, treatment for abnormal behaviors once again returned to mystic and religious practices such as exorcism, where "the idea was to coax the evil spirits to leave or to make the person's body an uncomfortable place in which to live," (Comer 2006:9). As the Western world slowly pulled itself out of the Dark Ages, real scientific inquiry once again surfaced as a way to treat an confront abnormal behaviors.

During the Renaissance, scientists began to open up asylums to study and treat individuals exhibiting abnormal behavior. This slowly morphed into more and more diversified treatments for various types of psychological disorders. There were two major ideas of the origin of abnormal behaviors. The somatogenic perspective viewed the abnormal behaviors came from biological causes, while the psychogenic perspective believed that psychological factors were more dominant in the existence of abnormal behavior, (Comer 2006). Scientists began to see patters within various types of abnormal behavior, which then helped to facilitate the study of such behaviors and how they might be handled in order to treat individuals; scientists found that there were sets of symptoms which "appeared together regularly enough as having a biological cause, much as a particular medical disease may have an associated set of symptoms ad may be attributed to a biological dysfunction," (ScribD 2005). During the Twentieth Century, people began to see abnormal psychology as its own discipline, with behavioral attributes being caused by both physical abnormalities as well as deep rooted psychological issues (Comer 2006). Today abnormal behavior is treated with various psychiatric strategies along with psychotropic medication regiments. Various cases are now categorized differently based on common patterns and outcomes of disorders, (Meyer et al. 2008). Like disorders can then be treated with much more structured and successful treatment strategies than seen in the past.