Psychology today is widely used for the cure of various types of abnormalities. The parents as well as the teachers to day seek the guidance from the psychologist in their dealing with the children and students. They complain of the abnormality of the children or students, to the psychologist who with their help finds out the causes and tries to remove them. Thus to-day one finds a flourishing branch of psychology in the form of abnormal psychology. In the Western countries the frequency of nervous diseases is gradually growing as the rush of life is ncreasing with industrialisation and urbanisation. This has increased the necessity of abnormal psychology. Abnormal psychology and psychiatry use a certain method known as case history in their study of abnormal cases. As is clear by the name of the method, in this method the psychologist traces the whole history of the case. The tracing of the history requires not only the statement of history by the patient, but also whatever can be gathered from his relatives. The psychologist interviews all the near relatives of the patient and also his friends. By this interview much is known about the habits, routine thinking, nature etc., besides the various incidents of the life of the patient. This interview also makes the psychologist know the various types of relations which the patient has with different persons Again, the patient is asked to relate his life history so far as he can remember. He is also asked to relate his dreams etc and they are interpreted by the psychologist as long as they give an idea about the infantile life of the patient. All the data gathered through the patient as well as those related to him in some way give an outline of the history of his case. By the analysis of this history the psychologist tries to find out the causes of the abnormality. Suppose a child whose behaviour is not normal or who has run away from the school several times, is taken to the psychologist. The child is ill-mannered and bad tempered. He does not bother about punishment on dictacts of the elders. The psychologist interview the parents and other relatives of the child and tries to know his case history. He takes the child with him into a room and sympathetically tries to know vanous thing about his life. In short, be enquires about everything concerning the child and his relations with other. An analysis of all this data gives an idea about the cause of absormality, trancy or bad manners. If the causes are discovered, the parents and teachers are guided accordingly and the malady is removed.
Example of a case history
An example from the report by Katherine M Mourer known as a Behaviour problem in a Young Child will give an idea as to how the clinical psychologists use the case history method:
The case
Lousy was 3 years and 9 months She was very obstinate and short tempered. From an interview with her parents it was learnt that the father and mother held each other responsible for bringing up the child as emotional and unbalanced. Then they were interviewed separately. An aunt of Lousy and a nursery teacher were also interviewed. In the interview Lousy's mother described her family back ground. She told that Lousy was born normally and that her mother-in-law did not take part in the household work but remained with Lousy for hours. Lousy had acute constipation. She had occasional fits in which she lay down on the ground, cried and attacked others. Lonsy's mother did not want to disclose her marital adjustment. Her mother in law severely criticised her friends, her household management and her behaviour towards Lousy.
The facts
Lous's problem began at the age of 2. At the age of 3 she liked to hear stories instead of playing with the children of her age. While among other children she quarreled with them. She liked to live with her father and go for walks with him, though when angry she did not spare even
her father. Once when her father did not hear her, she bit him in the leg.
An interview with her father disclosed that he was proud of Lousy. He thought her to be very intelligent and described how Lousy paid attention to him and worked like an adult woman. He expressed doubt in Lousy's happiness and that perhaps she never felt secure.
A physical examination of Lousy disclosed that except some weight she had no physical abnormality. According to doctor, constipation was due to wrong habits of diel. Sucking the thumbs, biting all the nails and turning the hair was clearly observed. When her father hrough her to the psychologist, she appeared to be attractive, modest and feminine. When her mother brought her she appeared to be abstinate and manageable Sometimes she struggled and quarreled and lay down on the ground and cried when requested by the mother to wear the coal Psychological tests showed that she commanded a vocabulary found in 1 child of 8 years and that she was more intelligent than the average. The powers of language were far more developed than the physical powers.
The diagonsis
The clinical psychologist came to the following conclusions about Lousy's abnormal behaviour:
The clinical psychologist came to the following conclusions about Lousy's abnormal behaviour:
She was a very well developed and brilliant child with an attractive personality. She was used to close attention and company of the adults and her daily routine was extremely unsystematic, resulting in fatigue. This resulted in the absence of harmony in the parent child relationship. She did not get opportunity of adjustment with the children of her age. Her intellect was too much developed because of absence of variety of experience. Her capacity did not develop harmoniously and her word powers were excessively developed beyond motor capacity. She understood her weakness which made her adjustment on child's level still more difficult. She appeared to be an extremely fatigued small child tyrant who did not get emotional contentment from the mother and was emotionally introvert and dependent on her father.
Recommendation of the psychologist
The psychologist mainly recommended the following things for her:
The psychologist mainly recommended the following things for her:
Friendly relation with mother should be established and her life at home should be re-organised. She must get more sleep, balanced diet and should play with children of her age. In evening she must be attended by some members of the family mother, father or grandmother. The mother should feel that she is responsible for the progress of the child. But father and mother-in-law were also told that they should change their routine in order to make relation of mother and Lousy better. The child was admitted into a nursery school and arrangements were made between the school and clinic so that she might not be turned out of the school before she could be reformed. In the beginning, Lousy felt it difficult to adjust herself to the nursery school. But after some years, it was found that Lousy was far more brilliant than children of her age in studies as well as scouting etc. But she could not overcome her early weakness which lay in lack of affection for the mother and excessive attachment to daddy. At 15 years of age, she was a beautiful girl who appeared to be very able and behaved with balance. She had no nervous habits. According to her own report her greatest happiness was to work with daddy. The man whom she dreamt to marry was exactly like daddy.
The example cited above shows very well the problem, the procedure and the work of clinical psychology with the aid of the case history method.
Limitations of cast history method
Like other methods in psychology, case history method has also its own difficulties and limitations. One of the limitations is that it is very difficult to know the whole history of any patient and to observe it objectively. It is possible that while relatives are interviewed they may be prejudiced in their answers or try to hide something unpleasant. In the case of the children, it is difficult to know their history through them, because their memory is neither strong nor reliable and the psychologist has to depend upon the reports of the relatives. It is possible that the parents do not observe something about the history of the child which is very important for the case. These and other limitations make it difficult for the clinical psychologist to arrive at a proper diagnosis. In the case of the adults, abnormals etc., however, the psychologist gets the data of their dreams, analyses them and finds out some unconscious causes. He may also ask the patient to explain things about his childhood and tell psychologist his history. The psychologist may question him from time to time and can get much out of his statements. Thus in the case of abnormals, the difficulties are less than those in the case of the child. This, however, does not mean absence of difficulties and limitations which are always there. But in the ultimate analysis the case history method has proved to be very valuable for the diagnosis of mental abnormalities. As a matter of fact it all depends upon the experience and ability of the psychologist as to how far he is able to gather a history and analyse it to find real causes. A psychologist like Sigmund Freud can very well make use of a case history to discover the causes of the most complex type of abnormality.
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