1.

Abnormal psychology- is the branch of psychology that studies unusual patterns of

behavior, emotion and thought, which may or may not be understood as precipitating a
mental disorder. Although many behaviours could be considered as abnormal, this branch
of psychology generally deals with behavior in a clinical context.

2. A disease is a pathophysiological response to internal or external factors. A disorder

is a disruption to regular bodily structure and function. A syndrome is a collection of
signs and symptoms associated with a specific health-related cause

3. Many early societies attributed abnormal behavior to the influence of evil spirits.
Skulls have been found from as long ago as the Stone Age (half a million years ago) with
areas removed by a method of surgery that involved making circular holes in the skulls
with stone tools. It has been suggested that the purpose for such surgery was to release
evil spirits, assumed to be causing mental problems in the patient.[1] Exorcism by priests
and shamans has also been used in attempts to drive out invading spirits. Ironically,
William James, the father of the American tradition in psychology, tried to incorporate a
spiritual aspect to psychology that was replaced by the science of behaviorism in the next
century. During the Greek and Roman period, 500 B.C.E. to 500 C.E., some symptoms of
mental disorders were classified into terms such as melancholia, dementia, hysteria, and
hallucinations. They were generally assumed to be the result of some physical problem
within the individual. Hippocrates (460 377 B.C.E.), considered to be the father of
medicine, referred to brain pathologies as "humors" caused by yellow bile, black bile,
blood, or phlegm. Plato (427 -347 B.C.E.) and Aristotle (384 322 B.C.E.) also believed
that mental disturbances were generated from within the individual not from the influence
of outside forces.

Johann Weyer

In the Middle Ages in Europe, 500 1350 C.E., the presence of Christian priests
expanded across Europe. Deviant behavior or psychological dysfunction was viewed as created
by the conflict between good and evil, God or Satan. Cruel methods of ridding the afflicted
person of the devils influence were varied and often resulted in death or permanent disabilities.
Hospitals to care for the mentally ill began to emerge at the end of the period. The Renaissance
period was a time when science flourished. The German physician, Johann Weyer (1515 1588
C.E.), was the first doctor to specialize in mental illness and is consider to be the founder of
modern psychopathology.[2] Some progress was made in England and Belgium to care for the
sick but this deteriorated by the mid-sixteenth century when asylums began to replace hospitals.
The first asylum was founded in Spain. In London, 1547, Henry VIII opened Bethelehem
Hospital (pronounced Bedlam by the locals), resulting in the word "Bedlam" being used for
lunatic asylums in general, and later for a scene of uproar and confusion. At the time of the
French Revolution, Philippe Pinet (1745 - 1826), became the chief physician at La Bicetre
asylum in Paris. He believed the patients were sick people in need of kindness and care. The
English Quaker, William Tuke (1773 1813), started similar reforms in the United States.
Dorothea Dix (1802 1887) further championed the cause of human public care and took it to
the level of political reform. She personally helped to establish 32 state hospitals.

Franz Anton Mesmer

However, it appears that every time a wave of improved treatment emerged it was
followed by a period of decline, usually due to over capacity and lack of funding. By the early
years of the twentieth century, the moral treatment movement had ground to a halt in the United
States and Europe. In the early twentieth century, two opposing perspectives emerged:
somatogenic and psychogenic. The former held that abnormal behavior had physical origins and
the latter held that the causes of such were psychological. Biological science found causes for
illnesses such as syphilis. The study of hypnotism launched the psychological origin
(psychogenic) perspective. Franz Mesmer (1734 1815) introduced the treatment of hysteria
with hypnotherapy, but this method called "mesmerism" was not well regarded by doctors of his
day. Hypnosis was not seriously studied until the late 1800s in Vienna. It attracted Sigmund
Freud (1856 1939) who later founded psychoanalysis.