Abnormal Psychology

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those with psychological disorders.
Many historians believe that Paleolithic people saw no distinction between medicine, magic, and religion. Archeologists have uncovered skulls with holes drilled in them dating back as far as 8,000 B.C. Researchers have determined that, for some, bone healed near these holes indicating that the procedure may have been surgical and that the person survived. Theories abound as a means to explain the purpose behind this surgery called trephining. Some anthropologists have theorized that the holes may have been drilled into the skull as a means of releasing “evil spirits” trapped inside the head causing abnormal behavior. Other anthropologists believe that trephining was used to treat medical problems such as the removal of a tumor. The true purpose for trephining during the Stone Age remains unknown.
The Greeks had differing views on the origins of psychological behavior. Homer believed that mental illness was a result of God taking one’s mind ...

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none knew these documents existed. During the middle ages monks, clergy and prominent members of the church became powerful. As the Roman and Greek empires decayed and declined, clergy, monks and church power brokers replaced the healers and doctors of the Greco-Roman era. With the fall of Rome came the rise of Christianity. Although I am a minister I acknowledge that Christianity has much to atone for, and the Middle Ages, with their return to the demonological/supernatural model, in the late 400s - 1800s are a shameful part of the history of Christianity. Monks and clergy moved toward an unstructured, untested system of “treatment” for the mentally ill creating potions that may not ...

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