Understanding mental illness

Document Type:Research Paper

Subject Area:Psychology

Document 1

The belief that mental disorders were caused by psychic powers gave rise to traditional healers who were believed to cure the diseases. Also, the traditionalists thought that mental disorders were due to witchcraft and sorcery. The second assumption is that mental illnesses were due to stress and melancholy. The psychoanalytic theory of abnormal psychology premised on the assumption that the unconscious influences behavior patterns and overall mental health. Psychoanalytic was coined by Sigmund Freud and is aimed at explaining the complicated relationship between the body and the unconscious (Durand and Barlow, Chapter 1). For example, in one-dimensional approach, mental illnesses can be caused by genetic factors while in a multidimensional approach, the genetic influences must have interacted with other factors such as social-cultural, and psychological aspects to cause the disorder.

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