Download Chapter 9 - Naturalism and Humanitarian Reform

Chapter 9 - Naturalism and
Humanitarian Reform
A History of Psychology:
Ideas and Context (4th edition)
D. Brett King, Wayne Viney, and
William Douglas Woody
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Naturalism
• Naturalism is the doctrine that scientific
procedures and laws are applicable to all
phenomena.
• Evolutionary theory influenced science as
a whole, including biology and psychology.
– Evolutionary Theory has roots in ancient
Greece and Eastern sources.
– Evolution is part of the larger question of
cosmogony, the study of the origin of the
cosmos.
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Evolutionary Theory
• Evolutionary theory affected many
scientific domains.
• The evolution of the solar system has
been a topic of speculation since the
transition away from geocentrism.
• Kant and Laplace advocated an early version of
the nebular hypothesis.
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Evolutionary Theory
•
George-Louis Leclerc, known as Comte de
Buffon was one of the first to argue for
geological evolution.
–
•
Sir Charles Lyell, often regarded as the
founder of modern geology, published
Principles of Geology.
–
•
Theological authorities forced him to recant.
Lyell advocated uniformitarianism instead of
catastrophe theory.
Evolutionary ideas emerged in other areas of
intellectual discourse, including language and
the history of ideas.
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Evolutionary Theory
• The emergence of theories of organic evolution has
been a slow process.
– The process continues today.
• Significant impetus for theories of organic evolution
came from difficulties within Christian creation theory.
• Comte de Buffon suggested that humans and apes may
have common ancestors.
• Erasmus Darwin argued that plant life developed before
animal life and that all animals evolved from the same
organic material.
– He accepted the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
• Jean-Baptiste Lamark promoted progressionism.
– He also proposed the inheritance of acquired characteristics as
the mechanism of evolution.
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Evolutionary Theory
• Charles Darwin was asked to join the
voyage of the Beagle to examine life in
and around South America.
• After his return, Darwin read the work of
Thomas Malthus.
• Darwin presented evolution by natural
selection in a joint presentation with Alfred
Russel Wallace.
– Darwin was the first to publish the ideas in
1859 in his classic Origin of Species.
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Evolutionary Theory
• Evolution by natural selection implied the
following.
– Species tend to overpopulate.
– There is variation in all populations.
– There is a struggle for survival.
• Some variations will be better adapted to the environment
than others.
– The survivors will pass benefits to the offspring.
• Darwin also argued the following ideas.
– All changes that become fixed happen in this way.
– All changes occur by imperceptible gradations
– All changes arise originally by chance.
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Evolutionary Theory and Psychology
• Evolutionary theory was significant for
psychology in a number of ways.
– Evolutionary psychology provided the grounds for
comparative psychology.
• Conway Lloyd Morgan advocated his principle of parsimony
to limit anthropomorphic explanations.
• Decisions regarding Morgan’s Canon must balance the
precision orientation and the richness orientation.
– Following Darwin, researchers delved into the study
of development across the lifespan.
• Ernst Heinrich Haeckel was one of the first to argue that
ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
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Evolutionary Theory and Psychology
• Evolutionary theory was significant for
psychology in a number of ways.
– The evolutionary emphasis on survival, adaptation,
and the environment factored into the rising interest in
human adaptation to built environments.
– Evolutionary theory attributed importance to individual
differences in adaptation and survival.
• Herbert Spencer sought to build philosophical,
psychological, and scientific explanations
around evolutionary theory.
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Naturalistic Approaches to
Emotional Disorders
• Naturalistic approaches to emotional
disorders emerged slowly.
– Naturalistic approaches to mental disorders
met resistance.
– Resistance continues today.
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Demonology
• In the Renaissance, views of mental illness were
based in demonology.
• The Witches’ Hammer, the Malleus Maleficarum,
was commissioned to curb the spread of
witchcraft.
– The Malleus was divided into three parts:
• the classification of devils and witches and the reconciliation
of witchcraft and God’s omnipotence,
• the methods by which devils and witches influence the world
and the means of combating their influence, and
• judicial procedures for trying witches.
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Demonology
• Mental disorders were viewed as the result of
voluntary collaboration with a devil or the curse
of a witch.
– Treatments paralleled these diagnoses.
• Witch hunts and witch trials were widespread
throughout Europe.
– Tens or hundreds of thousands of people were
executed for witchcraft.
– Approximately 85% of victims were women.
• The trial procedures were written to maximize
the likelihood of a conviction.
– Torture was often used to elicit a confession.
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Demonology
• The demise of witchcraft as an explanation for
mental illness was slow.
– This remains a work in progress.
• Johann Weyer argued that witches were actually
suffering from mental illness.
• Baruch Spinoza believed that devils did not exist
because there was nothing other than God.
• Descartes’s mind-brain relationship left no room
for demons to work on human minds.
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Humanitarian Reform
• Humanitarian reform grew as a movement
across society and psychology.
• The movement to reform the treatment of
the mentally ill took place in the context of
a larger reform movement that included
the following.
– Universal education
– Improved sanitation
– Abolition of slavery
– Equality for women.
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Humanitarian Reform and
Mental Illness
• The reform encouraged the treatment of people
with mental illnesses as humans.
• Franz Anton Mesmer believed that the
magnetism affected a magnetic fluid in the body
that controlled health and disease.
– Although barred from practicing medicine in Vienna,
Mesmer’s flamboyant style was well received in Paris.
– King Louis XVI convened a panel of experts who
concluded that magnetism was not an effective
treatment.
– Hypnotherapists would return to methods of
suggestion as a form of therapy, but Mesmer’s career
was destroyed.
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Humanitarian Reform and
Mental Illness
• In France, Philippe Pinel led reform of the treatment of
the mentally ill.
– He experimented with new methods of humanitarian treatment
and rewards based on appropriate behavior.
– Pinel classified mental disorders into five major categories:
•
•
•
•
•
Melancholia,
mania without delirium,
mania with delirium,
dementia, and
idiotisme.
– Pinel argued that mental disorders were caused by the
individual’s environment and lifestyle.
– Pinel was one of the founders of moral therapy, a precursor to
psychotherapy.
• This included talk treatment.
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Humanitarian Reform and
Mental Illness
• Benjamin Rush is recognized as the first
American psychiatrist and author of the
first psychopathology textbook in America.
– Rush argued that all psychopathology was the
product of physiological processes, primarily
in the circulation of blood through the brain.
• His therapies reflected his perspective.
– Rush coined the word “phrenology.”
– His belief in the connections between mind
and body paved the way for future
physiological psychologies.
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Humanitarian Reform and
Mental Illness
• Reform in other places continued to accelerate.
– William Tuke and his great grandson Daniel Hack
Tuke ran the York Retreat in England.
– Vincenzo Chiarugi instituted humanitarian reform in
Italy.
• He was one of the first to employ psychodrama in treatment.
– In Germany, the reformer Johann Christian Reil
interpreted mental illness as a failure in psychological
unity.
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Humanitarian Reform and
Mental Illness
• Reform became a social movement in America
with the work of Dorthea Lynde Dix.
– Dix started her work by changing conditions for the
mentally ill at the East Cambridge jail.
– She then expanded her efforts to the entire state of
Massachusetts and then to the country as a whole.
– Dix recognized physiological, psychological, and
sociological contributions to mental illness.
– She argued that psychological disorders are the
offspring of civilization.
– For Dix, treatment should include good diet, exercise,
amusement, and meaningful occupation.
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Reform of Treatment of People with
Mental Deficiencies
• Reform of treatment of people with mental
deficiencies paralleled the reform of the
treatment of the mentally ill.
– Prior to the modern era, demonology was believed to
be the cause of disabilities.
– Children with disabilities were referred to as
changelings.
• Jean Itard’s pioneering work with a wild boy near
Aveyron led to improvements in the boy’s
behavior.
• Edouard Seguin developed a systematic
approach to teaching individuals with mental
deficiencies
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Women’s Reform Movements
• Women’s reform movements fought against
sexism in religion, education, employment,
property rights, and voting rights.
• Margaret Sanger devoted herself to women’s
health issues and to publishing information on
safe and effective means of birth control.
– Sanger argued that birth control was necessary for
women for their health.
– She argued for equal standing in society.
– She contributed to the intellectual context for health
psychology and the study of human sexuality.
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