What I Know....

In my 'What I Know' articles I am going to start writing up my lecture notes from my Abnormal psychology course that I had taken when I was studying how to be a human service worker. My major was Human services and then I declared a minor in Psychology. This was a really fun class to go to and study. What is Abnormal psychology? As I progress through my notes we will learn what this subject is pretty much all about, and if anybody is interested I can do the same for a Psychopathology course as well. Again, I had this course in the early 21st century and I know there may be changes. This is just to give readers an introduction to what the course is generally about.

Chapter One

There are four concepts of abnormality and the criteria of abnormality is does it do harm or is it destructive and not socially accepted. *The care concepts is about the issues and concerns that are repeated and examined in about abnormal behavior. It is the context in which behavior occurs and the circumstances of the situations that occurs. Does it give insight into and will make the problem allowable due to various demographic variables like age, gender, class, etc. There is a continuum between normal ------- abnormal. Is an exaggeration of a normal behavior like anxiety for an example a difference between being unusual and abnormal.

There are cultural and historical relativism that has changed over time and with different cultures. The limitations and advantages of diagnosis leads to stigmatization and labeling. Does abnormality affect learning outcomes? How we interact with abnormality? There will be consistency with working with services offered. Therapists, counselors, doctors and other ancillary workers will use some criteria to measure the clients problem. The symptoms do overlap and could lead to a misdiagnosis and may lead to an improvement in communication with staff.

*There is a term multiple causalality meaning that there are multiple causes and predisposing factors that lead to the problem. Therapists and others need to look for precipatating factors as well as triggering factors. There may be biological issues and causes even with various social messages received. Is there a connection between the mind and the body. Abnormality can be biological and psychological. There is not a dicotomny that split in cognitive and physical changes that help with the inter-relatedness of what is all involved with defining abnormality.

Chapter 2

Defining Abnormality

What is the criteria and advantages to defining this term 'abnormality'? There is the HIDES formula if you want to think of it that way.

H stands for help seeking- person seeks help.

I stands for irrationality- out of control behavior(s).

D stands for devianceness - unusualness; different from the norms that are clear.

E stands for emotional distress; always in some disorder; what type and degree of discomfort experienced feelings.

S stands for significant impairment; mal-adaptive.

There is a person by the name of David Rosenhan who says "being sane in insane places" helped to illustrate the damages of labeling. Diagnostic means is a way that helps limitations and help seeking. There is *subjective discomfort that there is not always aware of feelings in situations in life. Who determines discomfort? If there is an absence of discomfort or no feeling nothing at all. *What are maladaptive behaviors? These are behaviors that cause someone to suffer distress or interfere with daily functioning. The characteristics are physically damaging oneself like cutting, starving and bulimic behaviors; by emotional suffering or harm as intense suffering and sadness; it interferes significantly in daily life; and indicates no longer in touch with reality and a loss of control of thinking. As in having delusions (false beliefs). How much interference is needed for impairment to have a problem. The culture will effect this. There are exceptions that are specific and useful.

Deviance is useful to help to think outside the box, as well as teaching in various situations. There are technical capabilities to exclude costumes and dressings. *Savant people who are talented in one area or field and challenged in other areas. Professional ideas as in forensic medicine deals with the history and not what is normally done. A deviant person will not usually conform to what is 'normal' in the culture. *Help seeking this is when people do not really seek help and help is really not needed. Investigations with diagnosis and admitting that they need help. *Irrationality is compulsive behaviors from past say in sports with odd circumstances and survival needs. This could be a warning sign. *There is also emotional distress that people hide these emotions and could not even be aware of these emotions and even how much time is or was given to these various emotions. There could be *significant impairment that depends on the experiences and on the continuum of tolerance.

Perspectives of Abnormality

What is abnormal psychology? Abnormal psychology is the scientific study with the objectives of describing, explaining, predicting, controlling behaviors that are strange and unusual from the bizarre to the commonplace. Any body who reads books and magazines and whomever is studying this area could start believing that they have these issues when they don't and this is called *Medical Student Syndrome. You will have an exaggerated susceptibility to a disorder because of the universality of these problems and that gives a tendency to compare us to others functioning, but DO NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS!!!! Wakefield has definitions of abnormality that can be found in the textbook 'Chapter 2' of Abnormal Psychology.

To be continued