Читать книгу Abnormal Psychology - William J. Ray - Страница 9

Abnormal psychology books from the middle of the last century largely contained descriptions of particular disorders. However, there would not be much written about the experiences of having a mental disorder. Since that time, society has a new conceptualization of what it means to have a mental disorder. There is also a greater awareness of how many people with a mental illness are able to live full lives and have productive occupations. In this text, I want to introduce some of these individuals and describe their experiences.

Also, in a textbook from the last century, there would not be much written about research studies. The research included would be focused exclusively on studies related directly to abnormal psychology. It would not be connected with the larger human condition and how mental illness is part of our evolutionary history and related to human cognition, emotion, and motor processes. In many ways, the field of abnormal psychology at that time remained disconnected from other areas of psychology as well as the life sciences.

Jumping ahead to the beginning of the 2000s, abnormal psychology textbooks included more research. However, the amount of research related to the neurosciences was limited. There was little in the way of brain imaging and the manner in which different disorders are related to one another on an underlying level. However, there was a realization that mental illness is a complex process and cannot be explained on a single level such as the possibility of mental illness being produced by a single gene or by one type of environmental experience.

Using this broader perspective, the dichotomous positions of nature versus nurture or innate versus learned fuse into the larger question of how aspects of each lead to an understanding of behavior and experience and their relationship to mental illness. Understanding that human behavior and experience take place on a number of different levels replaces the strict dichotomous approach pitting one level against another. On a molecular level, for example, we now know that genes must be turned on and off. What this means is that many significant human processes are directed by the environment. That is, environmental factors are able to influence which genes turn on and off. On a higher level, the “genetics versus culture” debate may be of limited value without understanding the manner in which humans both live within a culture and are influenced by historical environments.