Transcript Who Experiences Abnormal Behavior?

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
SEVENTH EDITION
By : Oltmanns and Emery
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Having a “lucky” seat in an exam?
Being unable to eat, sleep, or study for days after
the breakup of a relationship?
Breaking into a cold sweat at the thought of being
trapped in an elevator?
Refusing to eat solid food for days to stay thin?
Thorough hand-washing after riding a bus?
Believing government agents monitor your phone
calls?
Drinking a 6-pack daily to be “sociable”?
DO YOU THINK ANY OF THESE
BEHAVIORS ARE ABNORMAL?
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Symptoms and signs of mental disorders are
known as psychopathology.
◦ Pathology of the mind
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Abnormal Psychology is the application of
psychological science to the study of mental
disorders.
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The line dividing normal from abnormal is not
always clear.
OVERVIEW
RECOGNIZING THE PRESENCE
OF A DISORDER
 Mental
disorders are defined in terms of:
◦ Duration or persistence of maladaptive
behaviors
◦ Impairment in the ability to perform social and
occupational roles
◦ Individual experience of personal distress
 Insight—the
ability to appreciate the
extent of one’s problems or the impact
one’s behavior has on other people.
 Interpersonal
vs intrapersonal judgments
DEFINING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
◦ Statistical
norms—how common or rare it
is in the general population
DEFINING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
 Harmful
dysfunction—Jerome Wakefield
◦ The condition results from the inability of some
internal mechanism to perform its natural
function.
◦ The condition causes some harm to the
person as judged by the standards of the
person’s culture.
◦ Not every dysfunction leads to a disorder.
DEFINING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
 Harmful
Dysfunction (continued)
◦ The DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) definitions
places primary emphasis on the
consequences of certain behavioral
syndromes.
 Mental disorders are defined by clusters of
persistent, maladaptive behaviors that are
associated with personal distress (ex:
anxiety or depression, impairment in social
or occupational functioning).
DEFINING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
◦Culture is defined in terms of values,
beliefs, and practices that are shared
by a specific community or group of
people. Has a profound influence on
opinions regarding the difference
between normal and abnormal.
DEFINING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
◦ Relativism --- the conceptions of truth and moral
values are not absolute but are relative to the
persons or groups holding them.
◦ What is considered normal and abnormal
differs widely across cultures and over time.
◦ Cultural relativism
◦ Historical relativism
Culture
◦ Voodoo
Drapetomania
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Groups representing particular social values have
brought pressure to bear on decisions shaping the
diagnostic manual.
Culture
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Cross-Cultural Comparisons
◦ All mental disorders are shaped, to some extent, by cultural
factors.
◦ Do we see eating disorders in countries where there is famine?
◦ Have depression and anxiety increased recently?
◦ No mental disorders are entirely due to cultural or social
factors.
◦ Psychotic disorders are less influenced by culture than are
nonpsychotic disorders.
◦ The symptoms of certain disorders are more likely to vary
across cultures than are the disorders themselves.
WHO EXPERIENCES
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR?
What is the difference between normal and
abnormal behavior?
The differences between abnormal and normal
behavior are essentially differences in degree,
(quantitative differences).
abnormal
normal
normal
abnormal
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Depressed mood or dysphoria (a feeling of low mood, irritability, anxiety
and/or despair)
Anxiety or tension
Affective lability
Irritability
Decreased interest in usual activities
Concentration difficulties
Marked lack of energy
Marked change in appetite, overeating or food cravings
Hypersomnia or insomnia
Feeling overwhelmed
Other physical symptoms, i.e. breast tenderness, bloating
To be considered as PMDD, symptoms must occur during the week before
menstruation and remit a few days after onset of menses.
Symptoms must interfere with work, school, usual activities or
relationships.
Symptoms must not merely be an exacerbation of another disorder.
Diagnostic Criteria for
Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
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Frequency in and Impact on Community Populations
◦ Epidemiology: the scientific study of the
frequency and distribution of disorders within a
population. Have there been increases/decreases
in the diagnosis of disorders? Which ones? In
specific areas? What role did gender, SES, race
play?
◦ Incidence: the number of new cases of a disorder
that appear in a population during a specific
period of time.
◦ Lifetime prevalence: total proportion of people in a
given population who have been affected by the
disorder at some point during their lives.
Who Experiences Abnormal
Behavior?
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Frequency in and Impact on Community
Populations
◦ Lifetime Prevalence and Gender Difference
 The National Comorbidity Survey Replication
(NCS-R) found that 46% of the surveyed
people received at least one lifetime
diagnosis. See page 11 Figure 1-1
 Epidemiological studies consistently find
gender differences for many types of mental
disorders.
WHO EXPERIENCES
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR?
FIGURE 1-1 Lifetime prevalence
rates for various mental disorders
(NCS-R data)
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Frequency in and Impact on Community
Populations
◦ Comorbidity and Disease Burden
 The presence of more than one condition within
the same period of time. 23 percent of the
people in the NCS sample had three or more
lifetime disorders, and 50% were rated as being
severe.
Who Experiences Abnormal
Behavior?
How does the impact of mental
disorders compare with that of
other health problems?
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Epidemiologists measure disease burden by
combining factors of mortality and disability.
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Although mental disorders are responsible for
only 1% of all deaths, they produce 47% of all
disability in developed countries and 28% of all
disability worldwide.
Psychiatry: branch of medicine concerned with
the study and treatment of mental disorders.
◦ Licensed to practice medicine
◦ Prescribe psychotropic medication
 Clinical Psychology: concerned with the
application of psychological science to the
assessment and treatment of mental disorders.
 Social Work: concerned with helping people
achieve an effective level of psychosocial
functioning.
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THE MENTAL HEALTH
PROFESSIONS
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Insanity is a legal term that refers to
judgments about whether a person should
be held responsible for criminal behavior
if he or she is also mentally disturbed.
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Is the person legally responsible for
his/her crimes because of mental illness?
Insanity and the Mental Health
Field