Major+Objections+to+Key+Findings

There have clearly been several key findings in psychopathology and for every key finding there are going to be those who object.

Lets start at the beginning... As mentioned before, the idea that psychopathology stems from possession by demons and or the devil goes back as far as the ancient Greeks. The first major objection to the idea that psychopathology was the cause of possession was made by Hippocrates.

Hippocrates was the first to propose the notion that all mental illness was from natural causes (Cannon, n.d.). Plato was the next person to challenge this idea of possession in psychopathology. Plato was the first to encourage people to care for any family and he also attempted to create the first retreats for those who were mentally ill. As time progressed in America, there were several theories as to why people suffered from psychopathic tendencies. There were those who believed that the process of lobotomies could cure psychopathology. This theory was based off of the research of Egas Moniz in 1936, who was the first man to perform psychosurgery (History of Psychosurgery in the United Kingdom, n.d.). In America, Walter Freeman was the first to practice lobotomies (History of Psychosurgery in the United Kingdom, n.d.). The main idea behind lobotomies was that by severing the connections in the brain, one could stop the symptoms of psychopathology. The major objection to this is that although the adverse psychological symptoms would persist, there were several other symptoms that would result as side effects. The personalities of the patients would be irreversibly changed not to mention the huge risk involved in the procedure.

Since lobotomies, there has been extensive research on how to deal with psychopathology. Most recently there has been work on development of not only different forms of therapy but also an extensive amount of research done on medicines that may help. This research still continues as there has not been a medication yet that is flawless. As medication progresses, there are fewer people having to be held in mental hospitals and are being sent home or to halfway houses. Hopefully such strides will continue to be made in the future.



Another important objection was pertaining to David Rosenhan's findings about Pseudopatients. There was research and teaching hospital whose staff heard about Rosenhan's findings, and disagreed strongly. In order for Rosenhan to test this theory about pseudopatients and he told the hospital that in the next three months he would be sending pseudopatients and the staff would have to determine who they are. In three months, the staff ended up diagnosing up to 41 patients as being suspected of being pseudopatients. Rosenhan told the hospital that he never sent any pseudopatients to the hospital, thus proving that even professionals in psychology can make mistakes.