copyright © allyn & bacon 2008 chapter 9 - naturalism and humanitarian reform a history of...

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008

Chapter 9 - Naturalism and Humanitarian Reform

A History of Psychology:Ideas and Context (4th edition)

D. Brett King, Wayne Viney, andWilliam 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.


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.


Evolutionary Theory• George-Louis Leclerc, known as Comte de

Buffon was one of the first to argue for geological evolution.

– Theological authorities forced him to recant.

• Sir Charles Lyell, often regarded as the founder of modern geology, published Principles of Geology.

– Lyell advocated uniformitarianism instead of catastrophe theory.

• Evolutionary ideas emerged in other areas of intellectual discourse, including language and the history of ideas.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


Naturalistic Approaches to Emotional Disorders • Naturalistic approaches to emotional

disorders emerged slowly.– Naturalistic approaches to mental disorders

met resistance.– Resistance continues today.


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.


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.


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.


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.


Humanitarian Reform andMental 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.


Humanitarian Reform andMental 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.


Humanitarian Reform andMental 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.


Humanitarian Reform andMental 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.


Humanitarian Reform andMental 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.


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


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.

copyright © allyn & bacon 2008 chapter 9 - naturalism and humanitarian reform a history of...

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