What is normal? That question poses a big problem for mental health experts as we don’t know who exactly is normal and who is abnormal and how do we use this image in comparison to the person who is diagnosing? That therefore concludes that every diagnosis has to be looked at with an open mind as every person is different.
There are many ways in which that make it easier to diagnose a possible mental health patient. Deviation from Social norms, It is based on statistics, so it determines whether a large proportion of the population have the same abnormality. It helps to make an estimation which determines where you are considered normal of abnormal compared to the rest of the population.
However, Deviation from social norms doesn’t make a definitive answer to whether or not the abnormalities are due to a mental disorder. The decision to the point is arbitrary because it is dependent on limiting factors; another problem with this determination is whether or not a considerable amount of the population has the abnormal behaviour. Another problem is making sure that the statistics come from persons that are similar to the person being diagnosed.
Another way to define if the abnormality is due to a mental disorder is deviation of social norms. Each culture behaves differently and behaviours in some cultures may seem normal in that context but in a different culture they may seen as abnormal behaviour and that is why it is so difficult to distinguish whether or not somebody has a mental disorder.
There is a certain way each culture is supposed to act in each different situation in life. The majority of people adjust their behaviour to each situation. However, a minority don’t this behaviour in the culture is seen as abnormal but it may not be due to a mental disorder it may just be because the person is eccentric. Also culture changes over time making it hard to use traditional images of what is and isn’t normal, for example people used to believe homosexuality was an abnormal behaviour until 1970. It also depends on which social class you’re in.
Another way to look at normality is for it to mean the ideal mental health, while as abnormally is seen as something undesirable. It is somehow the polar opposite of the ideal mental health. This is called Deviation from Ideal Mental Health. This is attempting to create a list of characteristics which confirm what ideal mental health is.
Manslow like many other psychologists defined his own hierarchy of needs. The things we need in order to survive and function properly. Manslow came up with physiological, safety, love, self esteem and self fulfilment. This is used to assess how far into self-actualisation a person is consequently the further on the way to this realisation, the better the mental health.
Jahoda outlined a model of six in which mental health can be diagnosed; Self attitude, Personal growth, Integration, Autonomy, Perception of reality, Environmental mastery. The more of these the person has satisfied the healthier the individuals mentality is.
This approach focuses on positive aspects of the problems this is beneficial to the patient as they are asked about positive things. Very few people achieve all 6 models. It is difficult to find to which extent the individuals are satisfied with Jahodas objectives.
Some people are against the idea that abnormality is a lead in which we can use to find a diagnosis for Mental Disorders. Michel Foucault, R.D. Laing, Thomas Szasz and Franco Basaglia are well know anti – psychiatrists. They made observations about the use of abnormal behaviours in the diagnosis of Mental Disorders.
They believed that Mental Illness is a social barrier built by doctors. The believe that doctors rely on the fact that physical diseases can be proved by scans and tests and that doctors feel the same about a mental illness. Mental illnesses do not need to be proved with evidence.
They also believed that abnormal behaviour symptoms can be misunderstood and misinterpretation because of lack of knowledge about the diagnosis of mental illnesses based on abnormal behaviour.
Professionals in medicine use labels to classify and label people. They do not diagnose patients by saying they have a disease such as schizophrenia they are labelled schizophrenic this may make a patient believe that they have the disease they then believe they have the given symptoms that come with the disease. This can cause social drift, when people are diagnosed as mentally ill it can cause them to drift down the social ladder as they feel worthless.
The poor treatment given with mental illnesses by possible recruiters, friends and so on will be powerful over the diagnosis of a mental illness. People believe that they have a higher social status this is a form of abuse.
Doctors compromise ethical ideas for financial links with drugs and insurance companies. They are hoping to make money from the mental illnesses they are describing.
The ways in which we try to diagnose mental illnesses all have their high points which can help us, however they all have a downfall in which makes in extremely difficult to make a confident diagnosis and therefore causes a list of problems which we have to overcome the limitations as every person is different. So the professionals have a standardized procedure in which to diagnose a mental disorder. This can effectively make a bad diagnosis but the healthcare professional may have to take other factors into account in order to make a correct diagnosis.
by
lilimaee123 (student)
