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Deviation from social norms – Society has certain standards for acceptable behavior and certain behavior that deviates from that standard is considered to be abnormal behavior. These standards can change from one society to another and can change over time.
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Maladaptiveness of behaviour – This is how the behaviour affects the well-being of the individual or social group. Examples would be a man who attempts suicide, an alcoholic who drinks so heavily that he or she cannot keep a job or a paranoid individual who tries to kill national leaders.
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Personal distress – The last criterium considers abnormality in terms of the individual's subjective feelings, personal distress, rather than his behavior. Most people diagnosed as 'mentally ill' feel miserable, anxious, depressed and may suffer from insomnia.
In the type of abnormality called neurosis, personal distress may be the only symptom, because the individual's behavior seems normal.
There are problems with defining abnormality in this way. Someone has to make the judgment about when an individual’s behavior has ceased to be adequate. This again introduces the problem of making an allowance for the person’s freedom. Psychologists and Psychiatrists might disagree over whether a person in this position was abnormal if adequate functioning were all they had to base their decision on. The reality is that their judgments about how the individual behaves will always be affected by social norms.
Marie Jahoda used a different approach to understanding normal and abnormal. Jahoda said that we can approach mental illness the same way as we do with health issues like blood pressure, temperature and energy levels. She suggested that we are abnormal when we fail to meet the criteria for good mental health such as:
- Healthy self attitudes and Self esteem
- Personal Growth
- Integration and the ability to cope with stress
- Autonomy or independence
- Accurate perception of reality
- Environmental mastery (manage relationships, work, leisure and adapt to changing circumstances)
This theory still plays an important role in modern clinical practice and is perhaps most helpful when assessing patients for therapy. Jahoda’s criterion tends to be for issues which people seek help rather than have it imposed on them.
It hasn’t been until recently that psychologist’s and other professionals have been be able to identify and accurately classify cases that they are dealing with so they can begin to treat and study them further. Diagnosis is quite tedious as many mental health disorders are similar and sometimes rely on very fine distinctions in their classification. An example would be when a person shows anxiety around social situations he/she can be seen to have symptoms of both schizophrenia and an avoidant personality disorder. But with a schizotypal disorder, when a person’s anxiety does not decrease as the individual becomes more familiar or trusting with the people in their environment, it can be seen as avoidant personality disorder. For a disorder to be treated properly it must be classified correctly.
During the Middle Ages blood letting was common practice in nearly all of the medical procedures and treatment that took place. It wasn’t until medicine and medical science began to develop that people started to realise that different illnesses required different treatment. Diagnosis method began to improve, diseases were classified and remedies were labeled to specific illnesses. Because of this success in the field of medicine, psychologists and other professionals also sought to develop classification systems. But as we already know classifying mental disorders can be very difficult.
The classification of abnormal behavior began with great inconsistency in the 19th century and with a massive amount of diversity among psychologists it was seen as a serious problem, as people with the same disorders were being diagnosed completely differently. A number of attempts were made to try and produce a system of classification which could be widely regarded and referred to when classifying disorders. For example in 1882 the Statistical Committee of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association produced a scheme which was revised several times but never adopted by its members. Also in Paris in 1889 the Congress of Mental science adopted a single classification system which was also never used because again consistency was lacking.
More recent efforts at achieving unity and refining classification have not been very successful either. The world Health Organisation attempted to classify disorders in a way in which would be widely accepted several times. But these efforts did not really start to improve until 1968 and 1969 when both the WHO and the American Psychiatric Association Published the ICD and the Diagnostic and Statistical manual. The ICD is revised periodically and is currently in its tenth edition, while the DSM is in its fifth. They are both gradually including more and more disorders by developing alongside each other and using the same . This has provided a lot more consistency than any other previous guides.
ReferencesAbnormal Psychology, cited in As Level Psychology Revision Guide by Grahame Hill (2001) Published by Oxford University Press.
Abnormal Psychology cited in Introductory Psychology by Tony Malim and Ann Birch (1198) Macmillan Press Ltd.
Abnormal Psychology cited in Introducing Psychology Research by Philip Banyard and Andrew Grayson (2000) Published by Palgrave.
Abnormal Psychology cited in OCR Psychology AS level by Fiona Lintern (2007)Published by Hodder & Stoughton
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