Lesson 2 - Historical Perspectives of Abnormal Behaviour

Historical Perspectives

Dorothea Dix and Wilhelm Wundt

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, moral management began to experience a significant decline. Among the reasons for this decline was the rise of the mental hygiene movement that focused on the physical well-being of the individual because physicians believed that all mental disorders had biologically-based explanations. All doctors had to do was keep individuals safe and comfortable until a biological cure was found. The social and psychological environment of the patient was not even considered.

In the mid-nineteenth century, despite the advances in treatment methodology, devices such as the tranquilizing chair and the circulating swing were still used. Individuals who were more difficult to treat and manage were subjected to these devices to help route them into sound reasoning!

Though no significant psychological help was given to patients, the mental hygiene movement did improve the conditions to which individuals were subjected. A pioneering American, Dorothea Dix (1802-1887), was instrumental in changing the conditions prevalent in US asylums. She spoke about the inhumane treatment that the mentally ill faced, and she lobbied the government. Dix was able to raise enough money to build hospitals in the US as well as open institutions in Canada and Scotland. Her efforts resulted in the establishment of over thirty mental hospitals!

About the same time the mental hygiene movement was advancing, progress in the study of anatomy and biology was instrumental in understanding many abnormal mental conditions. One major event was the discovery of the organic factors associated with general paresis – one of the most serious mental illnesses of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Symptoms of general paresis include paralysis and dementia. Individuals suffering from this condition had, on average, two to five years before death. Doctors determined that syphilis of the brain caused general paresis.

Treatment consisted of infecting the patient with malarial fever. This was an important example of how medical science helped cure a mental disorder. This discovery was a huge change from the earlier belief that the cause was supernatural to scientific proof of how pathology can cause a mental disorder. Thankfully, medical research continued, and we now use penicillin to treat general paresis!

While biological causes for abnormal behaviour were being heavily researched, Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) began to investigate psychological causes. He established the first experimental psychology laboratory, and his methods set the standard for future studies. The research completed in his laboratory was instrumental in moving psychology from the realm of philosophy to the realm of science. Now began the notion that behaviour could have environmental, sociocultural, and psychological causes in addition to biological causes.