History of Treatment
Dec 25, 2015
Care as a social issue -- the history of treatment
• What to do with the severely disturbed?– middle Ages to 17th century
• madness = in league with devil• torture, hanging, burning, sent to sea
– 18th century• mentally disordered people = degenerates • keep them away from society
The 19th century & attempts at reform
• Philippe Pinel (1745-1826)– reform in Paris
mental hospital– some patients got
better enough to leave hospital
The 19th century & attempts at reform
– reform of U.S. system– moral-treatment movement– kindly care– led to large, state-supported
public asylums• overcrowding, loss of
public attention
Dorothea Dix (1802-1887)
The 20th century
• Early Treatment Methods were crude and at time cruel. See Segment 36 of Worth Media Archive DVD (5 min)
• Deinstitutionalization (mid-1950s)– get people out of asylums and back into community– effective antipsychotic medication– general mood of optimism in country
• 1961: establishment of community mental health centers
We Still Have a Ways to Go
• Not all countries have come far in their treatment of mental disorders.
• View NBC Report on Serbian Mental Hospital (4 min) and the accompanying report when the revisited the hospital (3 min).
Hospitals from a patient's perspective
• Rosenhan (1973): "On being sane in insane places”– sane people got into mental hospitals as patients– found very low interaction with staff– dehumanizing nature of interactions– normal behaviors interpreted pathologically
• There are successful inpatient & outpatient treatment programs
Places of treatment
• public or private mental hospitals
• general hospitals
• nursing homes for older patients with mental health needs
• halfway houses/group homes
• community mental health centers
• private offices
Providers of treatment
• Psychiatrists– medical degree (M.D.)– special training/residency in psychiatry– mainly hospitals & private practice– can prescribe drugs
• Clinical psychologists– doctoral degree (Ph.D.) in psychology– training in research & practice– universities, private practice, community mental health
Providers of treatment
• Counseling psychologists– doctoral degree in psychology
– sometimes more emphasis on practice than research
– problems of living, rather than diagnosable conditions
• Counselors– master's degree in psychology
– schools & institutions
– school-or job-related problems
Providers of treatment
• Psychiatric social workers– master's degree in social work– public agencies, home visits
• Psychiatric nurses– bachelor's or master's in nursing– hospital settings
• Self-help groups– Alcoholics Anonymous– LaLeche League– Overeaters Anonymous
Recipients of treatment
• Most people who meet criteria for DSM diagnoses do not seek treatment• Variability due to sex, education, race & income level
– women seek more treatment than men– college educated seek more treatment than high school educated– whites seek more treatment than nonwhites– higher income seek more treatment than lower income
Income level and seeking treatment
At least 1 disorder
Visit to specialist, has disorder
Visit to specialist, no disorder
Clinical Assessment• Assessment
– process of gathering information to develop treatment plan for client
• Assessment Interview– very common assessment technique
– range from unstructured to highly structured
• Objective questionnaires– self-report to get information on feelings, thoughts,
behaviors of clients
– examples: Beck Depression Inventory, Child Behavior Checklist
The MMPI
• A psychometric personality test
• Used in clinical assessment
• 567 statements about the self
• Client answers true or false to items
• 10 clinical scales, 15 content scales, several validity scales
Projective Tests
• Most commonly used by psychodynamic therapists
• Designed to provide clues about unconscious mind
• Developed from free association technique– client asked to just say what comes into mind,
without censoring
Projective Tests
• The Rorschach – client looks at ink blots and discusses what
each looks like to them– therapist interprets these explanations
• Thematic Apperception Test (Roberts Apperception Test for Children)– client tells story based on picture they see– therapist interprets the stories
Behavioral Monitoring
• Used to help with treatment & assessment– Counting actual instances of target behaviors– Hospital staff, therapist, patient– Self-monitoring done by patient
Assessment of the physical brain• Electroencephalogram (EEG)
– pattern of electrical activity in brain– used to scan for brain damage
• Computerized axial tomography (CAT scan)– multiple x-rays of brain– can look for anatomical abnormalities
• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)– pictures of brain sections
• Positron emission tomography (PET scan)– images that reflect the pattern of blood flow and
rate of oxygen use