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Understanding psychology chapter 2
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Thomas Szasz a renowned psychiatrist, a professor at Syracuse Medical University teaching psychiatry, and an author of many successful books covering the topic of psychology. Szasz left a mark on modern psychology by maintaining his belief of not being a anti coercive psychiatry and not approving of involuntary psychiatric treatment. His book “The Myth of Mental Illness” challenges psychology and the definition of mental illness. He confronted the idea of mental illness as a disease and a label placed upon people. Hie gave a new perspective on psychology gave other psychiatrists and psychologists a new controversial insight on mental illness. Thomas Szasz wrote “The Myth of Mental Illness” whose own book questioned psychology. His own
George W. Bush Szasz, Thomas Stephen, "The myth of mental illness: foundations of a theory of personal conduct", New York : Hoeber-Harper, 1961. Torrey, E. (2011, March 18). Restoring reason for treating mental illness.
Yerks, R.M. (1932). Robert Mearns Yerkes. In a History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol II.
... Psychoses.” Criticism & Lacon. Eds. Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1990. 64–73.
From the 1930's to the 1960's, early attempts to combine the psychiatric goals of restoring mental health with new advances in medical science would produce tragic results for many of those who trusted modern psychiatry to provide comfort and healing. During this time, science, psychiatry, ambition, power, and politics came together to leave behind a controversial history of events that destroyed the trust and hope placed by many upon modern science and left behind a trail of scarred minds and ruined lives.
Hergenhahn , B. (2008). An inroduction to the history of psychology. (6th ed. pg. 17-18).
Sigmund Freud is known as the founding father of psychology. If it wasn’t for Freud and his work, psychology probably wouldn’t be around today (Javel, 1999). Although Freud had many followers, there were some who didn’t agree with his work and found his work to be very controversial. There were also many who criticized his work, one of his most controversial and criticized work was his psychosexual stages of development and his belief in the famous “Oedipus Complex.” Psychoanalysis is the first known modality used to treat individuals with psychological disorders.
8. Szasz, Thomas. (1974) The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct Harper Paperback, New York, NY
First Durkheim begins writing about Suicide and Psychopathic States, he mentions that if suicide is a disease or if it is insanity. The chapter mentions that having a mental illness could be a disease and leads one to committing suicide. One of his first theories was that mental illness is an effect to suicide. His second theory was if suicide is a monomania, he used two ways to describe that suicide was caused by monomania and a syndrome of insanity. Durkheim mentions that “A monomaniac is a sick person whose mentality is perfectly healthy in all respects but one; he has a single flaw; clearly localized (Durkheim 59).” See a monomaniac seems to be a normal person that one cannot tell if he or she is mentally ill, so how would one know if the
Maher, B. A., & Maher, W. B. (1985). Psychopathology: II. From the eighteenth century to modern times. In G. A. Kimble & K. Schlesinger (Eds.), Topics in the history of psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 295-329). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Unfortunately not much was known about the cause or treatment of mental illness until very recently in our history.
James T. Fisher, a psychiatrist also noted: “If you were to take the sum total of all the authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene-if you were to combine them, refine them, and cleave out the excess verbage-if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expresses by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer immeasurably through comparison.” – (Fisher, J. T., & Hawley, L. S. (1951). A few buttons missing: The case book of a psychiatrist. pp. 273 Philadelphia: Lippincott.)
A severe economic depression, as well as the beginning of psychology as a social science, marked the 1890’s. Paranoia is known to be a thought process, heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid beliefs can also be associated with the feelings of powerlessness and victimization. When Christian von Ehrenfels founded gestalt psychology, William James also published “Principles of Psychology”, which introduces readers to four methods of psychology: analysis, introspection, experiment, and statistical studies. This period experienced a tremendous amount of growth within the scientific studies of the psychological mind, and can be known as the experimental stage of social sciences.
Mental illness is a difficult enough ailment without the inaccurate, prejudiced assumptions that accompanies with the diagnosis. The stigmatic attitudes that are inflicted upon these people affected with this illness are unfair and fictitious. These attitudes contribute to the self exclusion from social interactions, reluctance to seek help and discrimination. If a person isn’t unfortunate enough to be inflicted by a mental illness it is highly like that they will just accept the information from what is told by the media. Unfortunately, when a mental illness issue is on the news it is usually concerning a violent incident. Representation of mental illness in the media therefore plays an import role in determining societies understanding and
K. Freedheim (Eds.) , History of psychotherapy: Continuity and change (2nd ed.) (pp. 485-496). American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/12353-029
Mental illness has been around since as early as 5000 BCE(Before Common Era) and the treatment of mental illness has been around just as long. There has always been an interest of what happens when a person's mind turns against them, and just what can be done, if anything to help or reverse this condition.