Abnormal Psychology

• Abnormal psychology is concerned with behavior that is atypical or dysfunctional, and with mental disorder or disability.
• Extreme forms of psychological abnormality are easy to recognize, but the point at which normality becomes abnormality is much less clear.
  • Psychological definitions emphasize personal distress and interference.
    • This does not account for people who lack insight into their difficulty.
    • It also does not account for cases when the behavior is normal but the degree of distress is abnormal.
  • Medical Conceptualization suggests abnormality as a symptom of an underlying disease.
    • Criticized for ignoring the effects of the person’s environment and social context.
    • It also undermines personal responsibility.
    • In some cases, there may not have an illness but the behavior is still abnormal.
  • Normative approaches suggests abnormality deviates from statistical and social norms.
    • It confuses normality with desirability.
    • It is also dependent on prevailing social norms, moral norms, and cultural attitudes.
  • Existential approaches suggest abnormal behavior is an inevitable response to an unpredictable world.
    • This can explain why someone’s behavior may be more of a problem for those around them, or for society, than for themselves.
  • Normalizing / Health-Based approaches attempt to specify normality or healthy psychological functioning and then define abnormality in contrast to this (i.e., significant deviation from ideal mentally healthy behavior)

Classification of Abnormal Behaviors §

• When using diagnostic labels it is important to avoid stereotyping. The danger is that once people are given a label, they may be seen as identical to other people with the same label when in fact the differences are as marked as the similarities

Treatments §

• The Medical Model suggests that abnormal behavior is a result of physical or mental illness caused by genetic, biochemical or physical dysfunction in the body or brain. Thus we treat the abnormal behavior by treating the underlying illness.

• The Psychodynamic Approach suggests that abnormalities arise from defense mechanisms. Treatment focuses on early life experiences and involves revealing the patient’s unconscious motives and resolving original conflicts

• Humanistic Psychotherapy focuses on the present and views the patient as being in the best position to understand their problems .Therapists adopt an attitude of unconditional positive regard — being genuinely non-judgmental and emphatic.

• Purely Behavioral Approaches focus on how abnormal behavioral patterns can be learnt, and thus unlearnt.

• Cognitive Behavioral Approaches take into account patient history, current pattern of behavior, experimental research and cognition, Patients are encouraged to examine the cognitive processes by which they arrive at a particular state of mind.

• Both psychological and drug treatments can be effective in ameliorating distressing symptoms, and psychological treatments such as CBT may have an advantage over drug treatments in terms of lower relapse rates (the proportion of people who deteriorate or relapse once treatment has finished

Miscellaneous §

• Depersonalization-derealization disorder occurs when you always or often feel that you’re seeing yourself from outside your body or you sense that things around you are not real — or both. You may feel like you’re living in a dream.

Links §

• Psychology — A Very Short Introduction by Butler and McManus - Ch. 8

• Delusions Of The Mind - 3 Terrifying Mental Syndromes

• A Youtuber’s Decent into Madness - the effects of Total Insomnia on the body and mind.