ABNORMAL

PSYCHOLOGY
Abel W.
Clinical psychologist
 Lecture preview

• Definitions of abnormality
• Perspectives
• Classification and description of psychological disorders
• Treatment of psychological disorders
• Treatment approaches
• Modes of therapy
 Abnormality in everyda

• What is normal?
• Provide examples of what is normal and what isn’t

• How does the notion of what is normal differ across cultures?

• Is there a fixed definition of normal just like there are laws of physics?

• So, how do we construe the definition of what is normal and what is not?
Abnormality in everyday life

• According to APA DSM-IV-TR Abnormal describes behavioral, emotional,

or cognitive dysfunctions that are unexpected in their cultural context and
associated with personal distress or substantial impairment in functioning.

• According to social norm point of view, abnormal behavior is when a

person’s behavior interferes with the health functioning of individual as well
as the group growth.

• Generally, abnormal behavior is a behavior that is deviant, maladaptive, or

personally distressful.
 Definition of a Mental Disorder(DSM V)
• A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an
individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the
psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.

• Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress or disability in social,
occupational, or other important activities.

• An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the

death of a loved one, is not a mental disorder.

• Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) and conflicts that are
primarily between the individual and society are not mental disorders unless the deviance
or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above.
• Four major criteria to differentiate abnormal from normal
behaviors.
• Distress
• Impairment
• Risky (harmful)
• Social and cultural unacceptability
Distress
• Distress is the physical or psychological pain observed on the individual.

• When people experience considerable emotional distress without any life experience
that warrants Abnormal behavior

• They may be diagnosed as having psychological or mental disorder.

Impairment
• Impairment is the reduction of the individual‘s normal level of performance or
functioning

• Washing hand before you eat is normal or adaptive functioning, but washing your
hands 100 times a day is impaired or maladaptive functioning.
Risky (harmful)
• Risky (harmful) to self and others

• It is when the individual poses any harmful behavior to oneself and to others.
Social and cultural unacceptability
• Social and cultural unacceptability is when the individual‘s
behavior is deviating from once own
• Social and cultural beliefs
• Values
• Traditions
• What is normal in one culture may not be so in another
different culture.
Historical Perspectives
• Biological theories
• Supernatural theories
• Psychological theories
The Biological Tradition

• Hippocrates
• Mental illness caused by brain pathology, head trauma, heredity
• Pasteur’s germ theory of disease
• Mental illness can be caused by a bacterial infection (syphilis)
• John P. Grey
• Insanity is always due to physical causes and patients suffering from mental illness should be
treated as physically ill
Psychological
• Psychological dysfunction
• Breakdown in cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning (continuum vs.
dimension)
• Personal distress
• Being extremely upset (caution – sometimes it is normal to be extremely
upset)
• Atypical or not culturally expected behavior
• Social norms and their possible misuse
The Supernatural Tradition

• Mental illness is caused by demons and witches

• Shock therapy (pit of snakes, ice-cold water)
• Exorcism (religious rituals to get rid of evil spirits)
• Mental illness is caused by stress
• Rest, sleep, a healthy and happy environment
• Mental illness is caused by the movements of the moon and the stars
• Pracelsus
• lunatic
 ICD (International Classification of Disorder)

• It is published WHO and the latest edition is 11th for mental disorder.
• It has subsection which deals with different mental problems.
DSM – IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder)
• It is published by American Psychiatrist Association in 1994.
• According to DSM IV, individual should be diagnosed from five dimensions (axises).
• Axis I: Clinical disorders (examples, anxiety disorders, mood disorders,
schizophrenia disorders, and other psychotic disorders).
• Axis II: Personality disorders (examples, anti-social personality disorder, mental
retardation, Narcissistic personality disorder). Narcissistic – means a Greek boy who
loves himself.
• Axis III: General medical conditions (examples, infection and parasitic diseases,
circulatory system disease, injury, and poisoning).
• Axis IV: Psychosocial and environmental problems (examples, problems with
primary support group, educational problems, economic problems).
• Axis V: Global assessment of functioning
 Classifying psychological disorders(DSM V)
• Neurodevelopmental Disorders • Sleep-Wake Disorders
• Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic • Sexual Dysfunctions
Disorders • Gender Dysphoria
• Bipolar and Related Disorders • Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct
• Depressive Disorders Disorders
• Anxiety Disorders • Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders
• Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders • Neurocognitive Disorders
• Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders • Personality Disorders
• Dissociative Disorders • Paraphilic Disorders
• Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders • Other Mental Disorders
• Feeding and Eating Disorders • Medication-Induced Movement Disorders and
• Elimination Disorders Other Adverse Effects of Medication
Major Types of Psychological Disorder
• Anxiety Disorders
• Mood disorder
• Schizophrenia
• Personality Disorders
Anxiety Disorders

• Anxiety is generalized fear and has more tension then there is uneasy feel because
they are think that some difficult things (situations) will happen in the future.
• It is characterized by motor tension, hyperactivity, and apprehensive expectations
(thought).
• Anxiety disorder includes
• Generalized anxiety disorder
• Panic disorder,
• Phobic disorder,
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder, and
• Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Panic disorder
• Panic disorder – refers to an anxiety disorder marked by the recurrent, sudden onset of intense
apprehension or terror.
• People with panic disorder experience “panic attacks” this is similar to heart attack.
• Panic attack is a period of intense fearing and physical discomfort.
• To call panic attack it must at least four of the following symptoms present.
• Shortness of breath
• Hyperventilation (breathing very fast)
• Dizziness (unable to stand properly)
• Choking (obstacling the breath)
• Heart palpitations (very fast of heart beat)
• Feeling of helpless
• Chest disorder
• Fear of dying, going crazy or losing control
• Stomach disorder
• Trembling (shaking) etc.
Phobic disorder

•Phobic disorder- is an anxiety disorder in which the individual has an irrational, over-

whelming, persistent fear of a particular object or situation. This leads individual to

avoid the object or situation.
•People with any kinds of phobia (acrophobia, aerophobia, gamophobia, mysophobia,

etc) are realizing that their fear is irrational but they cannot control it.
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

•It is a type of an anxiety which generalized not directed toward particular things.

•When a person constantly present over six months, the diagnosis is judged as anxious.

• Three symptoms should be seen to call generalized anxiety disorder.

• Restless

• Being easily fatigue

• Concentration difficulty

• Irritability

• Muscle tension

• Sleeps disturbance, etc.

Obsessive – Compulsive disorder (OCD)
• An anxiety disorder; the individual has anxiety provoking thoughts that will not go
away (obsessive) and or urges to perform repetitive, ritualistic behaviors to prevent or
produce some future situation (compulsion).
• Obsessions- are intrusive and recurring thoughts, impulses, and image that come to the
mind and appear irrational and uncontrollable to the individual.
• Compulsion- is a repetitive behavior or mental act that the person feels driven to
perform in order to reduce the distress caused by obsessive thought or obsession leads
to compulsion.
• Common Obsessions are: obsession of contamination, doubt, aggression, etc.
• Common Compulsions are: washing, cleaning, counting, putting items in order,
checking, assurance, hoarding, etc.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
•It is an anxiety disorder that develops through exposure to a traumatic event. The

followings are from some of its symptoms:

 Sense of detachment, high sudden forgetting,

 Reduced feeling of awareness, feeling of unreality (derealization),

 Depersonalization, excessive arousal,

 Flashbacks, avoiding situation, poor concentration, sleep difficulty, etc.

• Generally, people develop this disorder within one to three months.

Mood disorder
•Mood is our emotional state. Mood disorders are disorder in which there is a primary disturbance in mood;

include depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, unipolar disorder and other mood disorder.
•People with mood disorder may show the following symptoms:

 Poor appetite/over eating,

 feeling of helpless,
 sleep disturbance,
 fatigue,
 early morning awaking,
 significant weight loss,
 distressed, depressed,
 distractibility,
 high level of talking, and
 nonstop writing.
Schizophrenia

•It is the most severe form of psychological disorder which resulted in the dramatic

disturbances in thought and perception.

• People with this disorder often cannot tell the difference between the reality and

imaginary.
•They link their problem with environment and their all daily life is disturbed.

•Schizophrenia develops in two ways:

• Reactive schizophrenia which developed suddenly and the symptoms could be
dramatic.
• This is generally identifiable symptoms and its treatmental outcomes are more
positive than the process schizophrenia which develops over a long period of time and
the symptoms are slowly.
 The major symptoms are the following
• Disturbance in language and communication
• Disturbance of thought content example, delusions – false beliefs
 Disruption – inability to sort out different stimulus simultaneously

 Hallucination –false perceptions. It can be: auditory, visual, or olfactory hallucination

 Inappropriate emotion –unexpected emotion

 Confused sense of self –false identity i.e. gender (male or female) and even confusion over the

boundary of their body and environment.

 Disrupted Violation- lack of motivation or abnormal motivational activities such as occupational,

interpersonal, social, etc.

 Distort motor behavior- they show different types of abnormal movement happen in them such as:

hyperactive, deteriorated movement, rejected posture, mutism, facial grimace, ritualistic manner, etc.
. Personality Disorders
•Personality is an inclusive concept, and there are many different ways of categorizing and measuring an individual’s

personality characteristics.
• Personality traits are considered to be relatively enduring feature of individual that determine how they perceive the

world, and how they think about the world.

•Most people can be adaptable in the way they perceive the world and react to it but it is when personality traits

becomes inflexible, causing distress to the individual and others, that they begin to constitute a psychological disorder.
• Generally, personality disorders have the following characteristics:
 Behavior that deviates from that normally expected in a particular culture or society.
 Inflexible behavior pattern.
 Dysfunctional behaviors pattern that stable and long lasting, and can be traced back at least to adolescence or early
adulthood.
 Behavior patterns that lead to distress or impairment in a number of important areas of functioning.
Cluster A: Odd or Eccentric
• Paranoid personality disorder is a pattern of distrust and suspiciousness
such that others‘ motives are interpreted as malevolent.

• Schizoid personality disorder is a pattern of detachment from social

relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression.

• Schizotypal personality disorder is a pattern of acute discomfort in close

relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentricities of
behavior.
Cluster B: Dramatic, Emotional, or Erratic
• Antisocial personality disorder is a pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the
rights of others.

• Borderline personality disorder is a pattern of instability in interpersonal

relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity.

• Histrionic personality disorder is a pattern of excessive emotionality and

attention seeking.

• Narcissistic personality disorder is a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration,

and lack of empathy.
Cluster C: Anxious or Fearful
• Avoidant personality disorder is a pattern of social inhibition, feelings of
inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.

• Dependent personality disorder is a pattern of submissive and clinging behavior

related to an excessive need to be taken care of.

• Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder is a pattern of preoccupation with

orderliness, perfectionism, and control.
Eating Disorders

•These are normally considered as a separate disorder, although both are associated with

an obsessive fear of gaining weight and individual’s dissatisfaction with their own body
shape.
•The most prevalent of these are:

I. Anorexia Nervosa –it is a disorder especially, affecting young women in which

there is abnormal fear of being fat, and causing the person to stop eating.
II. Bulimia Nervosa –is a disorder in which a person repeatedly eats too much and then

forces himself/herself to vomit.

 Treating Psychological Disorder
• Treating psychological disorders fall into two main categories:
• Psychologically based therapy, or psychotherapy
• Psychologically based therapy, or psychotherapy, is treatment in which a trained
professional a therapist uses psychological techniques to help someone overcome
psychological difficulties and disorders, resolve problems in living, or bring about
personal growth.
• The goal is to produce psychological change in a person through discussions and
interactions with the therapist.
• Biologically based therapies
• Biomedical therapy relies on drugs and medical procedures to improve
psychological functioning.
• Many therapists today take an eclectic approach to therapy and use a variety of methods with an individual
patient.
 Psychotherapy
• Therapists use some 400 different varieties of psychotherapy, approaches to therapy
that focus on psychological factors.
• Although diverse in many respects, all psychological approaches see treatment as a
way of solving psychological problems by modifying people’s behavior and helping
them gain a better understanding of themselves and their past, present, and future
• Almost all psychotherapists employ one of four major approaches to therapy:
• Psychodynamic
• Behavioral
• Cognitive
• Humanistic
• These approaches are based on the models of personality and psychological disorders developed by
psychologists.
 Psychodynamic Approaches to Therapy
• Classic Freudian psychodynamic therapy, called psychoanalysis, tends to be a
lengthy and expensive affair.
• Psychodynamic therapy seeks to bring unresolved past conflicts and unacceptable
impulses from the unconscious into the conscious
• Psychodynamic approaches are based on Freud’s psychoanalytic approach to
personality, which holds that individuals employ defense mechanisms, psychological
strategies to protect themselves from unacceptable unconscious impulses.
• The technique that has evolved has a number of components, but basically it consists
of guiding patients to consider and discuss their past experiences in explicit detail
from the time of their first memories.
• This process assumes that patients will eventually stumble upon long-hidden crises,
traumas, and conflicts that are producing anxiety in their adult lives.
• They will then be able to “work through” understand and rectify those difficulties.
 Psychodynamic Approaches to Therapy
• In psychoanalysis, patients may meet with a therapist with considerable frequency,
sometimes as much as 50 minutes a day, four to five days a week, for several years.
• Techniques
• Free association
• Psychoanalysts using this technique tell patients to say aloud whatever comes to mind, regardless of
its apparent irrelevance or senselessness,
• The analysts attempt to recognize and label the connections between what a patient says and the
patient unconscious.
• Dream interpretation
• Examining dreams to find clues to unconscious conflicts and problems.
• The manifest content: the surface description of a dream
• The latent content: reveals the true unconscious meaning of the dream.
 Psychodynamic Approaches to Therapy
• Resistance is an inability or unwillingness to discuss or reveal particular
memories, thoughts, or motivations.
• Because of the close, almost intimate interaction between patient and
psychoanalyst, the relationship between the two often becomes emotionally
charged and takes on a complexity unlike most other relationships.
• Patients may eventually think of the analyst as a symbol of a significant
other in their past, perhaps a parent or a lover, and apply some of their
feelings for that person to the analyst
• Transference is the transfer to a psychoanalyst feeling of love or anger that
had been originally directed to a patient’s parents or other authority figures
CONTEMPORARY PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACHES
• Few people have the time, money, or patience to participate in years of traditional
psychoanalysis.

• Today, psychodynamic therapy tends to be of shorter duration and usually lasts no

longer than 3 months or 20 sessions.

• The therapist takes a more active role than Freud would have liked by controlling the
course of therapy and prodding and advising the patient with considerable directness.

• Finally, the therapist puts less emphasis on a patient’s past history and childhood and
concentrates instead on an individual’s current relationships and specific complaints
 Behavioral Approaches to Therapy
• Good behavior is maintained by reinforcement, and unwanted behavior can be eliminated by
punishment.
• People who act abnormally either have failed to learn the skills they need to cope with the problems
of everyday living or have acquired faulty skills and patterns that are being maintained through
some form of reinforcement.
• To modify abnormal behavior, then, proponents of behavioral approaches propose that people must
learn new behavior to replace the faulty skills they have developed and unlearn their maladaptive
behavior patterns.
• Treatment approaches that build on the basic processes of learning, such as reinforcement and
extinction.
• Viewing abnormal behavior as a symptom of an underlying problem, they consider the abnormal
behavior as the problem in need of modification.
• The goal of therapy is to change people’s behavior to allow them to function more effectively
 CLASSICAL CONDITIONING TREATMENTS
• Aversive conditioning: A form of therapy that reduces the frequency of undesired
behavior by pairing an aversive, unpleasant stimulus with undesired behavior.
• For example, behavior therapists might use aversive conditioning by pairing
alcohol with a drug that causes severe nausea and vomiting.
• Systematic desensitization: A behavioral technique in which gradual exposure to
an anxiety-producing stimulus is paired with relaxation to extinguish the response
of anxiety.
• Exposure is a behavioral treatment for anxiety in which people are confronted
either suddenly or gradually with a stimulus that they fear.
• Exposure has proved to be an effective treatment for a number of problems, including phobias,
anxiety disorders, and even impotence and fear of sexual contact.
 OPERANT CONDITIONING TECHNIQUES
• One example of the systematic application of operant conditioning principles is
the token system, which rewards a person for desired behavior with a token
such as a poker chip or some kind of play money.
• Contingency contracting, a variant of the token system, has proved quite
effective in producing behavior modification.
• In contingency contracting, the therapist and client draw up a written agreement.
• The contract states a series of behavioral goals the client hopes to achieve.
• It also specifies the positive consequences for the client if the client reaches goals
usually an explicit reward such as money or additional privileges.
• Contracts frequently state negative consequences if the client does not meet the
goals.
• Behavior therapists also use observational learning, the process in which the behavior of other people
is modeled, to systematically teach people new skills and ways of handling their fears and anxieties.
 Cognitive Approaches to Therapy
• Cognitive treatment approaches: Treatment approaches that teach people
to think in more adaptive ways by changing their dysfunctional cognitions
about the world and themselves.
• Cognitive therapists attempt to change the way people think as well as their
behavior
• Cognitive-behavioral approach: A treatment approach that incorporates
basic principles of learning to change the way people think.
• Although cognitive treatment approaches take many forms, they all share the
assumption that anxiety, depression, and negative emotions develop from
maladaptive thinking.
• Accordingly, cognitive treatments seek to change the thought patterns that
lead to getting “stuck” in dysfunctional ways of thinking.
 Cognitive Approaches to Therapy
• Therapists systematically teach clients to challenge their assumptions and adopt new
approaches to old problems.
• Therapists urge clients to obtain information on their own that will lead them to discard
their inaccurate thinking through a process of cognitive appraisal.
• In cognitive appraisal, clients are asked to evaluate situations, themselves, and others in
terms of their memories, values, beliefs, thoughts, and expectations.
• During the course of treatment, therapists help clients discover ways of thinking more
appropriately about themselves and others
• Cognitive therapy is relatively short term and usually lasts a maximum of 20 sessions.
• Therapy tends to be highly structured and focused on concrete problems.
• Cognitive approaches to therapy have proved successful in dealing with a broad range of
disorders, including anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse, and eating disorders.
 Humanistic Therapy
• Humanistic therapy: Therapy in which the underlying rationale is that people have
control of their behavior, can make choices about their lives, and are essentially
responsible for solving their own problems.
• Humanistic therapists view themselves as guides or facilitators.
• Therapists using humanistic techniques seek to help people understand themselves
and find ways to come closer to the ideal they hold for themselves.
• In this view, psychological disorders result from the inability to find meaning in life
and from feelings of loneliness and a lack of connection to others
• The therapist does not interpret or answer the questions the client has raised.
Instead, the therapist clarifies or reflects back what the client has said
 Interpersonal Therapy

• Interpersonal therapy (IPT): Short term therapy that focuses on the context of current
social relationships.
• Interpersonal therapy concentrates more on the here and now with the goal of
improving a client’s current relationships.
• It typically focuses on interpersonal issues such as conflicts with others, social skills
issues, role transitions (such as divorce), or grief
• Interpersonal therapy is more active and directive
• The approach makes no assumptions about the underlying causes of psychological
disorders
• Focuses on the interpersonal context in which a disorder is developed and maintained.
• It also tends to be shorter lasts only 12–16 weeks.
• During those sessions, therapists make concrete suggestions on improving relations
with others and offer recommendations and advice.
 Biomedical therapies
• This approach suggests that rather than focusing on a patient’s psychological conflicts,
past traumas, or environmental factors that may produce abnormal behavior, focusing
treatment directly on brain chemistry and other neurological factors may be more
appropriate.
• Drug
• Electroconvulsive
• Psychosurgical techniques
 Drug Therapy
• Drug therapy: Control of psychological disorders through the use of drugs, works by
altering the operation of neurotransmitters and neurons in the brain.
• Some drugs operate by inhibiting neurotransmitters or receptor neurons, which reduces
activity at particular synapses, the sites where nerve impulses travel from one neuron to
another.
• Other drugs do just the opposite: They increase the activity of certain neurotransmitters
or neurons, which allows particular neurons to fire more frequently.
• The drugs include
• Antipsychotic drugs
• Antidepressant drugs
• Mood stabilizers
• Antianxiety drugs
 ANTIPSYCHOTIC DRUGS
• Drugs that temporarily reduce psychotic symptoms such as agitation, hallucinations, and delusions.
• Drugs used to reduce severe symptoms of disturbance, such as loss of touch with reality and
agitation.
• The newest generation of antipsychotics, referred to as atypical antipsychotics, have fewer side
effects.
• Most block dopamine receptors at the brain’s synapses.
• Atypical antipsychotics affect both serotonin and dopamine levels in certain parts of the brain
• Antipsychotic drugs do not produce a “cure” Most of the time, the symptoms reappear when the
drug is withdrawn
• Furthermore, the drugs can have long term side effects, such as dryness of the mouth and throat,
dizziness, and sometimes tremors and loss of muscle control, which may continue after drug
treatments are stopped
• E.g Antipsychotic drugs: Chlorpromazine (Thorazine), clozapine (Clozaril), haloperidol (Haldol)
• E.g Atypical antipsychotics, rizperidone, olanzapine, and paliperidone
 ANTIDEPRESSANT DRUGS
• Antidepressant drugs are a class of medications used in cases of severe depression to improve the
patient’s mood and feeling of well-being.
• They are also sometimes used for other disorders, such as anxiety disorders
• Most antidepressant drugs work by changing the concentration of specific neurotransmitters in the
brain.
• For example, tricyclic drug(Trazodone (Desyrel), amitriptyline (Elavil), desipramine (Norpamin)
increase the availability of norepinephrine at the synapses of neurons.
• Newer antidepressants selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) . (Fluoxetine (Prozac),
Luvox, Paxil, Celexa, Zoloft, nefazodone (Serzone)
• The overall success rates of antidepressant drugs is good.
• Antidepressants can produce lasting, long-term recovery from depression.
• In many cases, even after patients stop taking the drugs, their depression does not return.
• On the other hand, antidepressant drugs may produce side effects such as drowsiness and faintness,
and there is evidence that SSRI antidepressants can increase the risk of suicide in children and
adolescents
MOOD STABILIZERS
• Mood stabilizers drugs used to treat mood disorders that prevent manic episodes of
bipolar disorder.
• The drug lithium, a form of mineral salts, has been used very successfully in patients
with bipolar disorders.
• Other mood stabilizers such as divalproex sodium ( Depakote ) and carbamazepine
( Tegretol ) effectively reduce manic episodes.
• However, they do not effectively treat depressive phases of bipolar disorder, so
antidepressants are usually prescribed during those phases
• They can be a preventive treatment that blocks future episodes of manic depression.
ANTIANXIETY DRUGS
• Antianxiety drugs reduce the level of anxiety a person experiences and increase
feelings of well-being.
• Although the popularity of antianxiety drugs suggests that they hold few risks, they
can produce a number of potentially serious side effects.
• For instance, they can cause fatigue, and long-term use can lead to dependence
• E. g Benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax)
 Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
• Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a procedure used in the treatment of
severe depression.
• In the procedure, an electric current of 70–150 volts is briefly administered to
a patient’s head, which causes a loss of consciousness and often causes
seizures.
• The typical patient receives about 10 ECT treatments in the course of a month,
but some patients continue with maintenance treatments for months afterward
• ECT is a controversial technique.
• After treatment patients often experience disorientation, confusion, and
sometimes memory loss that may remain for months.
• Furthermore, ECT often does not produce long-term improvement
• ECT tends to be used only when other treatments have proved ineffective
 Psychosurgery
• Brain surgery once used to reduce the symptoms of mental disorder but rarely
used today
• The object is to reduce symptoms of mental disorder—probably appears even
more dubious
• The initial form of psychosurgery, a prefrontal lobotomy, consisted of surgically
destroying or removing parts of a patient’s frontal lobes, which surgeons thought
controlled emotionality.
• Psychosurgery often did improve a patient’s behavior but not without drastic side
effects.
• Along with remission of the symptoms of the mental disorder, patients sometimes
experienced personality changes and became bland, colorless, and unemotional.
• In other cases, patients became aggressive and unable to control their impulses.
In the worst cases, treatment resulted in the patient’s death.