PSY502 Lectures 27-28

DISORDERS

🔹 1. How ancient humans explained mental illness In very early history, people did not understand the brain. So they explained mental problems using spiritual ideas. 👉 Key idea: Ancient people believed there was a “soul” inside the body. They thought the soul controlled behavior and thinking.

• Soul: A non-physical part of a person believed to control life and mind (spiritual concept, not scientific).

🧠 What they believed

• If someone behaved strangely, they thought the soul was disturbed.
• So mental illness = problem in the soul.

📝 Example If someone heard voices, today we might say “hallucinations.” Back then they said, “His soul is disturbed or angry.”

🔹 2. Dreams and the soul Ancient people also believed the soul left the body during sleep. 👉 They thought:

• The soul traveled and did things.
• These activities appeared as dreams.
• Dream: Mental images and stories the brain creates during sleep.

📝 Example If someone dreamed of flying, they believed the soul actually flew out of the body. 🔹 3. “Mad” people in ancient times They thought a “mad” person:

• Did not care about themselves
• Did not respond to the world
• Lived in a different world
• Mad: Old word for mentally ill (not scientific, now considered disrespectful)
• Hallucination: Seeing or hearing things that are not really there
• Delusion: Strong false belief not based on reality

📝 Example If a person said, “I am talking to invisible angels,” people thought he had spiritual powers, not illness.

🔹 4. Greek and Roman shift to medicine Later, Greek and Roman thinkers became more logical. 👉 They said: Mental illness is not spiritual. It is a medical problem.

• Medical explanation: Explaining illness using body and brain, not spirits 📝 Example

Instead of saying “He is possessed,” they said “His brain or nerves are sick.”

🔹 5. From respect to cruelty At different times people treated the mentally ill in extreme ways. Some respected them as prophets

• Some burned them as witches
• Some tortured them to remove evil spirits
• Possession: Belief that a spirit or devil controls a person
• Trepanning: Drilling a hole in the skull to release evil spirits

📝 Example In Egypt, they drilled holes in skulls thinking demons would escape.

🔹 6. Middle Ages: Chains and prisons In 13th to 15th centuries:

• Mentally ill people were treated like criminals
• They were chained and jailed
• Asylum: A place made to keep and treat mentally ill people

They were not treated as patients. They were punished.

🔹 7. Industrial and French Revolutions When cities became crowded:

• Crime increased
• Begging increased
• Mental illness increased

👉 So governments put all “problem people” together.

• Scapegoating: Blaming one group for problems caused by society 📝 Example

Instead of fixing poverty and jobs, they blamed mentally ill people.

🔹 8. Beginning of scientific thinking By mid 1700s:

• People started saying mental illness is a nervous disease
• Nervous disease: A disorder of the brain and nerves

📝 Example Instead of saying “Devil did it,” they said “The brain is sick.”