Using statistical infrequencies to distinguish between normal and abnormal is a very mathematical way of diagnosing mental illness. The fact is, people are not as one dimensional as numbers so surely this in not the correct way to diagnose something so serious and life changing. After all a graph can only take into account a couple of pieces of information, whilst our lives are ever more complicated. Surely the view that we can be correctly diagnosed as being abnormal or normal based on two bits of information is frankly ridiculous when there are thousands upon thousands of things about us that shapes us into who we are.
Another definition of abnormality is to go against the socially accepted norm, that is to say doing something that the majority of people would find unnerving and have been brought up to believe is a wrong way to behave, e.g. talking to your self..
On the other hand there are some things that go against the social norm, and therefore make the people doing them abnormal, that if you think about it seems like the most natural things to do. .i.e. walking around naked is not socially accepted yet entire organisations are dedicated to that vary pursuit and for them walking around with clothes on goes against the social norm. So in this instance who is it that is mentally abnormal, the person who feels confident enough in their own skin to do away with the masked protection clothes have to offer? Or, is it the person who is so ashamed of their natural state that they feel the need to hide behind fabric and thread? Criminals also go against the socially excepted norm however you would not say that all criminals are mentally abnormal. In fact you could even argue that someone who steals food because they can’t afford anything to eat is actually just regressing back to their natural survival instinct. It would be mentally abnormal for them not to steal.
One of the major problems with using the social norm as a way to spot mental abnormalities is that what is socially accepted in one culture may not be in another. .e.g. eating frogs in England would be considered revolting but in France they are a delicacy.
The obvious definition of mental abnormality is “not being mentally healthy”. But seeing how mental health doesn’t have any clear description, this definition raises just as many questions as answers.
Another big problem with this definition is that no one can ever truly say they have ultimate mental health. Every one will experience sadness, stress and anxiety in their lives. But then does this mean that everyone is mentally abnormal and if so doesn’t this definition completely undermine the whole point of mental abnormality. Of course you could contradict this argument by saying that to be in a state of good health you need to have “mental, social and physical wellbeing” so what is meant by being mentally healthy is actually to be in a state of good mental health not perfect but good enough to function in everyday life. As to be healthy you don’t need to be Bruce Lee style physically fit you just have to be fit enough “to carry out every day activities with minimal fatigue”. The problem then is how do you monitor good mental health? Also how good does good have to be for you not to be abnormal. The major problem with this description is that it is very vague and whilst no one can argue that the description is wrong, it is a bit like saying that not being tall means you are short. There is no middle ground. In a society as broad and diverse as the one we live in to day having a middle ground in diagnosing any kind of medical illness is paramount. Not every one with out 20 /20 vision is blind and not everyone with cancer is terminal.
The final definition of abnormality is if someone is incapable of functioning adequately in society. Personally I find this description to be the best and most accurate. A drug addict, whilst they might be able to function in society with the drug as soon as you take that drug away they quickly break down. The drug was their crutch and they relied upon it instead of themselves to function. Maybe the real test of mental normality should be whether you could survive on an island for 4 days with food water and shelter and still function normally. In this period of time someone with an addiction would be having withdrawal symptoms but someone mentally normal would not be driven mad by the isolation and someone who had any form of mental unbalance would have showed specific clear signs that they were mentally abnormal.
Of course there is always the case of someone purposely choosing not to function, i.e. going on a hunger strike in protest. You can not argue that these people are mentally abnormal because by going on that hunger strike they might be saving their family or indeed an entire country and how can you argue that someone saving their friends and family is mentally abnormal.
For this precise reason I think you have to take all 4 definitions of abnormality into account when deciding if someone is abnormal. However you also have to take into account: why the individual is doing what they are doing, is it for a cause e.g. Gandhi went on a hunger strike to promote Indian rights. What culture / society are they from, if an Englishman said you were possessed by the ancestors of your enemies you would think he was insane, however in some African tribes this would be a perfectly reasonable thing to say. What was the context surrounding the behaviour, e.g. if you are a solider and you shoot people in war time that would be considered normal where as if you went out and shot a load of people in the high street that would definitely be considered abnormal behaviour.
I hope you can now see some of the problems faced by psychologists when it comes to the diagnoses of abnormality. In order to help with this diagnosis Rosenhan and Seligman came up with 7 elements, characteristics, of abnormal behaviour. The general rule is that if there is only one characteristic observed in your behaviour you would not be considered abnormal. However if there are several of these characteristics present in your behaviour, it is much more likely that you would be judged as being abnormal. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule and it does depend on how extremely you were/are effected by the particular element.
The 7 elements of abnormality are: suffering, maladaptiveness, irrationality, unpredictability, unconventionality, observer discomfort and violation of moral standards. In this second part of my essay I will be going into more depth about just what each element actually means, and why it is used to diagnose between normal and abnormal.
The first element of abnormal behaviour that I will be looking at is: Observer discomfort. Simply put people feel uncomfortable when they are in the company of someone who is acting abnormally. This can mean any thing from someone making to much/to little eye contact to someone rocking backward and forward laughing manically whilst wielding a knife.
The main reason that people may feel uncomfortable when they are faced with someone acting abnormally is because that person is not acting in a way that we would be used to. It is natural to be a bit unnerved by any thing new that we experience, i.e. a persons first day at school is nerve wrecking because they are entering into an alien environment. However being unnerved by someone else’s behaviour is slightly different. Because humans are naturally social beings we are all deeply ingrained from a young age with similar ideas on the “right” and “wrong” way to behave in public. So when someone breaks these unwritten rules it invokes a vary powerful reaction with in us as it almost seems like they are going against their own common sense.
Another element of abnormality is: personal suffering. Most people who have mental health issues report experiences of suffering in one way or another. One of the easiest ways of getting an idea about whether someone’s behaviour is to do with a mental abnormality, would be to look back at his/her past and see if there was any key evidence to indicate suffering on the patient’s part. Or do they feel like they are suffering from pain in any way at the moment. To put it another way if someone is content with their life and is not suffering then it is very unlikely that they will show any signs of abnormality.
Of course “normal” people also suffer from forms of distress i.e. the death of a loved one. Although these people will defiantly feel down and depressed, these feelings do not come out to extremes in their every day behaviour. Therefore the question of whether they were abnormal or not would not even be raised. In the same way it would be possible to argue that criminals and mass murderers who feel no guilt for their actions are perfectly normal as the action of breaking the law makes them feel happy so in this instant for them breaking the law in normal behaviour and not to break the law would be abnormal.
An alternative element of abnormality is: Maladaptiveness; In other words behaviour that prevents a person from adapting to life to the fullest of their ability. There are two different types of maladaptiveness. Firstly, maladaptivness towards your self, .i.e. cutting your self, and secondly, maladaptivness towards society .i.e. arson. Both types of behaviour prevent a person from achieving their goals to the best of their ability or simply being the happiest that they can be.
Of course there are obviously certain situations were it would be very hard to not show signs of maladaptive behaviour .e.g. if you were in Nazi Germany and were strongly anti Nazi it would be impossible for you to adapt to the regime. Similarly if you were in an abusive relationship it would be unnatural to adapt to the situation.
An obvious sign of abnormal behaviour is if someone behaves in an irrational manner. Of course if someone’s behaviour makes no sense to us then we are very likely to assume that they are abnormal. But it is all to easy to assume that someone is behaving in an irrational manner as you very rarely know the full story behind someone’s actions .e.g. if a person were to break down in the middle of the street it is very likely that you would think their behaviour abnormal. However what you don’t know is that they have actually just found out that they have a terminal illness, or that they have left their mobile phone on the bus.
You can see how easy it is to make assumptions that someone’s behaviour is irrational, and therefore abnormal. However it is often harder to truly understand whether they are behaving abnormally or not as you very rarely are seeing the full picture of what is going on inside someone else’s head. For this reason I think this is one of the hardest elements of abnormal behaviour to judge.
To behave in an unpredictable manner is also a sign of abnormal behaviour. Most people behave in a fairly controlled predictable way .i.e. if you were walking backwards down the street singing the alphabet it would be considered abnormal. Normal people walk forwards and don’t sing nursery rhymes to themselves. People also react unpredictably when presented with certain stimulus and their reaction could be a sign of abnormal behaviour. It would be weird to shout at someone if they had just helped you cross the road for example. Nevertheless unpredictability is a feature of most people’s behaviour. It is really dependent on how often and in what ways you are unpredictable as to whether your behaviour is abnormal or not.
Unconventional behaviour is yet another sign of abnormal behaviour. Not only does unconventional behaviour mean that you are going against the social norm but it also means that you are probably a statistical infrequency. In order for unconventional behaviour to be seen as abnormal it normally has to also be very noticeable and extremely abnormal. Otherwise it would just be seen as an eccentricity, or someone being non conventional and showing their individuality.
The final element of abnormal behaviour that I will be looking at is: Violation of moral and ideal standards. Or, to put it another way; breaking the standards that ideally the people in your society should stick to. In order to appreciate this element of abnormal behaviour we must first know what is meant by “ideal standards”. Is it simply things like, “do not kill another person”? Or is it stuff as specific as your dress size and hair colour? If you believe it is the latter then it follows that everyone is abnormal as we all fall short of the ideal person in one way or another. If on the other hand you take ideal to be the first definition then you still have the problem of someone disagreeing with the morals of their society .i.e. if you were living in Nazi Germany but were a Jew.
The big problem with this element of abnormal behaviour is that it is very vague and therefore it is to easy to group everyone as abnormal just using this element of abnormality. For this reason it is vital that you look at a person’s behaviour using all 7 elements of abnormal behaviour before you make a judgment on someone’s sanity.
Thomas Sazasz saw the fact that there was a get out clause in every definition of abnormality as well as every element of abnormality and came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as abnormality. He wrote several theses on his view. The fact that the treatment of mental illness has progressed so little since prehistoric times also goes further to prove Thomas Sazasz’s point. Not to mention the fact that it is well documented that governments try and control the people in there countries by suppressing their behaviour. As logical as Thomas Sazasz argument is I feel that he has missed the most basic idea behind abnormal behaviour which it that some people are just weird. How ever unsatisfactory this is as a definition it is just the way people are and to ignore this fact is to miss the whole point. Therefore I feel that although both the definitions and elements of mental health can easily be undermined they are as good as they can be with the knowledge available to psychologists at this present time.
