HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ABNORMALITY: LECTURE OUTLINE Historical perspectives Lessons learned from historical analysis The development of mental health services in Canada

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Ancient societies – focus on supernatural causes, harsh treatments Greek and Roman – focus on natural causes, humane treatment Europe in the middle ages – mostly focused on supernatural causes, witchcraft, demonology, Malleus Maleficarum, development of asylums in the 1500s, mostly harsh treatments

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Moral treatment (1 st mental health revolution) – 1790s, Pinel, Tuke, Rush, focus on natural causes and humane treatment

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Dorthea Dix and the rise of the medical model – mid to late 1800s, Kraeplin, advances in medicine, germ theory, Social Darwinism, institutionalization

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Mental hygiene movement – early 1900s, Meyer, Beers, James, Hincks, focus on humane treatment Psychoanalysis (2 nd mental health revolution) – Charcot, Breuer, Freud, focus on psychological factors and treatments Community mental health (3 rd mental health revolution) – beginning in the 1960s, deinstitutionalization, development of community-based programs

LESSONS LEARNED FROM HISTORICAL ANALYSIS The early history of psychopathology reveals a struggle between supernatural and naturalistic explanations and between harsh and humane treatments After the middle ages, naturalistic approaches based on scientific methods became dominant

LESSONS LEARNED FROM HISTORICAL ANALYSIS Whereas religious healers formerly provided “treatment,” this has become the domain of mental health professionals in the 20 th century Psychiatry and medicine have come to dominate mental health services, but clinical psychology has emerged in the past 30 years

LESSONS LEARNED FROM HISTORICAL ANALYSIS There has been a recurring pattern of expose and reform with regard to inhumane conditions for people with mental illness Views of etiology and treatment vary with social conditions There is a widening scope of experiences that are considered to be mental health problems

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES IN CANADA Late 1600s – asylums in Quebec Mid to late 1800s – Dorthea Dix and the rise of the medical model and asylums in eastern Canada Early 1900s – mental hygiene movement – Hincks, CMHA, growth of psychoanalysis 1940s – mental hospitals, medical superintendents, psychiatry

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES IN CANADA 1950s and 1960s – institutions, abuses, somatic “treatments”; Saskatchewan plan; Tyhurst (1963) report; shift to general hospitals 1970s and 1980s – emergence of clinical psychology training programs; beginning of community mental health programs

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES IN CANADA 1990s to today – establishment of clinical psychology across Canada (including 1 st Canadian textbook on abnormal psychology); both hospital and community mental health services subjected to government cutbacks in funding; in 2000, funding for phases I and II of mental health homelessness initiative in Ontario

SUMMARY Abnormality and mental illness are problematic concepts because of values and social context Martin Luther King Jr. proposed that psychology should form a “centre for creative maladjustment”

SUMMARY Remember that mental illness is not something absolute and unchangeable, but a concept that is constructed in a social context Stigma and discrimination towards people experiencing mental health problems have existed throughout history Need to dream of a better world for people with mental illness