A typical behaviour is hard to define as there is no normal behaviour and it is hard to define normal.

-Behaviour, which is socially unacceptable

-Evidence of distress

-Maladaptive behaviour

Categorising people is important as it can lead to misdiagnosis, which can have serious consequences. It can lead to a number of things including lowering of people’s social class and in one example of David Tom a Chinese immigrant, spending thirty years in mental institutions. Today there are stricter rules with categorisation under the UK mental disorders section.

There are many different perspectives of a typical behaviour. The first is the biological paradigm that states that mental disorders are caused by aberrant somatic or bodily processes. It focuses primarily on genetic and biochemical factors underlying etiology.

The psychodynamic approach focuses on phobias with its view on atypical behaviour. Sigmund Freud in 1909 did a 5-year case study on a boy called Little Hans who had an intense fear of horses. The study was based on the exchange of letters between the boy’s father and Freud. During this interaction an incident was traced where Hans saw a horse falling down on the street and thrashing its legs in vain to get up. Hans was then afraid to leave his house in fear of getting bitten by a horse, which had fallen down. In the approach it concentrates that phobias are learnt and when the signal CS is paired with the traumatic experience US this provokes a reaction UR. When the cs occur again it produces the phobia CR.

The humanistic approach towards disorders identifies a cause of atypical behaviour. It says that that a typical behaviour is caused by being frustrated with personal growth and false presentation of self. The treatment by a humanistic psychologist would be to help the client toward self-care.