Module 1 Notes: What is Abnormal Psychology?
Module 1 Notes: What is Abnormal Psychology?
1.1 Understanding Abnormal Behavior
One of the core goals in abnormal psychology is to understand what abnormal behavior entails and how it differs from normal behavior. Abnormal behavior is not attributed to a single trait but rather a combination of various factors. Several core concepts help define abnormal behavior, including dysfunction, distress, deviance, and sometimes dangerousness, with an additional consideration for the cost to society.
Dysfunction is characterized as a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior. This disturbance reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes that underlie mental functioning, as per the DSM-5-TR criteria. This can be summarized as: Dysfunction disturbance in mental processes.
Distress refers to the experience of psychological or physical pain that impacts social, occupational, or other important activities.
Deviance describes behavior that significantly departs from established cultural norms, recognizing that what is considered normal is culturally and socially defined and can shift over time, as seen in historical attitudes towards homosexuality or public displays of affection.
Dangerousness involves a potential risk to oneself or others; while not all disorders involve danger, it is often a critical criterion. Finally, mental illness carries substantial societal costs, encompassing economic burdens, caregiving responsibilities, and other related expenses.
Historically, the understanding of mental illness underwent significant shifts. The late 1800s to mid-20th century saw an early emphasis on the disease model, focusing on curing disorders with prominent psychoanalytic theories by figures like Freud, Adler, Jung, and Erickson. From the 1930s onward, Behaviorism, championed by B.F. Skinner, introduced the concepts of reinforcement and punishment as methods to modify behavior, viewing human behavior through a mechanistic lens. The mid-to-late 20th century witnessed a growing interest in the interplay of nature and nurture, leading to the development of both pharmacological and psychological treatments.
Martin Seligman (2008 TED Talk) identified three major costs associated with the disease model: a moral cost, where psychologists and psychiatrists adopted a victimologist stance, overlooking personal responsibility; a cost to normal life, neglecting the pursuit of improving creativity and high talent; and a lack of positive interventions, failing to develop strategies to enhance happiness and meaning.
In the 1960s, humanistic psychology, led by figures such as Maslow and Rogers, emerged, aiming to address the full spectrum of human functioning. This perspective emphasized personal fulfillment, feelings over intellect, self-actualization, positive regard, and client-centered therapy, famously articulated in Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Martin Seligman further propelled this shift with Positive Psychology, a movement he spearheaded during his APA presidency in 1996. This field involves the scientific study of happiness, hope, optimism, life satisfaction, goal setting, leisure, and well-being. A key distinction from humanistic psychology is positive psychology's reliance on quantitative methods, contrasting with the predominantly qualitative early humanistic work.
Ultimately, the distinction between normal and abnormal behavior can be understood as a combination of factors that, when extreme, culminate in a disorder. A crucial question remains whether normal behavior should be primarily derived from positive psychology principles or defined in contrast to abnormal behavior.
Abnormal psychology is formally defined as the scientific study of abnormal behavior, with the objective of reliably predicting, explaining, diagnosing, identifying causes, and treating maladaptive behavior. Psychopathology specifically refers to the study of psychological disorders. Mental disorders are characterized by psychological dysfunction that causes distress or impairment and is not considered culturally expected. The DSM-5-TR (2022) highlights dysfunction, distress, deviance, and sometimes dangerousness as defining aspects of abnormal behavior, emphasizing the influence of culture and social norms, and recognizing societal cost as a further consideration.
In summary, abnormal behavior is a combination of personal distress, psychological dysfunction, deviance from social norms, dangerousness to self or others, and societal cost. Abnormal psychology is the scientific study dedicated to predicting, explaining, diagnosing, identifying causes, and treating such behavior. Psychopathology focuses on the study of psychological disorders, which are defined as psychological dysfunction coupled with distress or impaired functioning that is not culturally expected. To recap, one should be able to answer questions such as: What is the disease model and its problems? Can we adequately define normal/abnormal behavior? What aspects are part of the DSM-5-TR definition of abnormal behavior? How costly is mental illness? What is abnormal psychology, what is psychopathology, and how do we define mental disorders?
1.2 Classifying Mental Disorders
Classification serves as the fundamental process of organizing and categorizing mental disorders, providing a nomenclature, or naming system, that structures our understanding. This is analogous to taxonomic classifications in biology (e.g., Kingdom, Phylum) or the Library of Congress's use of broad categories such as B for Philosophy, Psychology, and Religion, or R for Medicine.
Epidemiology, which is the study of the frequency and causes of diseases or conditions within specific populations (e.g., a school, city, country, or the world), plays a critical role. Psychiatric epidemiology, a subfield, specifically investigates the occurrence of mental disorders within a population.
In mental health facilities, when a patient presents with a problem, a clinical description is developed. This description encompasses the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that constitute the disorder, along with information on its probable causes, typical course, and potential treatment options.
Several measures are used to assess the occurrence of mental disorders. Prevalence quantifies the proportion of people in a population who have a disorder. Mathematically, it is expressed as: Prevalence . Point prevalence captures the active cases at a specific moment in time. Period prevalence measures the proportion of individuals with a characteristic at any point during a defined period, such as the past year. Lifetime prevalence indicates the proportion of individuals who have experienced the characteristic at any time throughout their life.
According to 2020 U.S. adult prevalence snapshots from a NAMI infographic, roughly 1 in 5 adults, or 20% ig( \frac{1}{5} = 0.20 \big), experienced a mental illness. Furthermore, 1 in 20, or 5% ig( \frac{1}{20} = 0.05 \big), had a serious mental illness, and 1 in 15, approximately 6.67% ig( \frac{1}{15} \approx 0.0667 \big), experienced both a mental disorder and a substance use disorder. It was also noted that 12 million individuals had serious thoughts of suicide.
Among adolescents aged 12–17 in 2020, about 1 in 6, approximately 16.67% ig( \frac{1}{6} \approx 0.1667 \big), experienced a major depressive episode. For adults aged 18–25, 1 in 3, or 33.3% ig( \frac{1}{3} \approx 0.333 \big), experienced a mental illness, and 1 in 10, or 10% ig( \frac{1}{10} = 0.10 \big), had a serious illness; 3.8 million had serious thoughts of suicide. A 12-month prevalence from a NAMI infographic also reported other significant statistics related to mental health.