How to distinguish normal psychology from abnormal psychology?

In the textbook, Professor Guo Nianfeng once put forward three points of view on the distinction between psychological abnormality and psychological normality: first, the unity of the subjective world and objective world, second, the principle of inner coordination of psychological activities, and third, the relative stability of personality. If a person can maintain the unity of subjective and objective, the coordination of inner activities, personality stability, and self-knowledge, this person is psychologically normal, and vice versa is psychological abnormality.

These three points have become the criteria for psychologists to determine whether the subject has a psychological abnormality.

However, excluding theoretical things, combined with the practical point of view, the reality of determining whether a person is psychologically abnormal is very complex, through talks, observation, and physiological auxiliary examination as the basis for diagnosis. Through examination, a large and rich amount of information can be obtained, especially the degree of psychiatric symptoms, and the clinical psychiatrist can gain a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the patient's cognition, emotions, thinking, and behavior.

Distinctions are usually made in the following areas.

1. general presentation. By general performance, we mean the general impression observed by the person working. The observation begins when the visitor or patient enters the studio. How is the appearance, how did he or she enter the consultation room and the consulting room? Did they come on their own on foot or were they forced to come by their family members? Is the dress code neat? Is the attitude dismissive and arrogant? Is the conversation logical? Is he or she able to take care of himself or herself in daily life?

Through observation, you can form an initial impression. If you observe something that is not right, it may reveal the manifestation of a person's psychological abnormality.

For example, if a person is very unhygienic, unkempt and unkempt, does not wash his hair for a long time, has poor self-care skills, and cannot say a few words in a conversation with him, but simply answers "um" and "oh" every time. This is often due to mental retardation or behavioral disorders.

If a person is high and mighty, with a mouth like a river, talking loudly, seeing people with special enthusiasm, once you see them, they will talk to you incessantly and cannot stop talking, when you see such a situation, you should first consider whether there are signs of "mania"; if you have a frown, hang your head, and always have the performance of sighing, then you will consider "Depression".

From the beginning of the contact conversation, observing each other's expressions and behaviors, we can see whether a person's psychological problems, whether anxiety, depression, fear, or anger, whether concentration, whether there is a disorder of consciousness, can be initially judged and evaluated.

2. Cognitive activity. The cognitive activity here is more complex, mainly asking whether there are any perceptual disorders, illusions, hallucinations, etc., whether the thinking is logical, whether the structure is rigorous, and whether the expressions before and after can accurately reflect reality. The speed, volume, and tone of communication can be judged comprehensively.

In terms of the content of thinking, delusions, hyperbolic ideas and obsessive-compulsive ideas are often present in the work. For example, the doctor may ask the patient how he or she gets along with the leaders and colleagues in the unit, and whether they care about him. The patient's words, if there are relationship delusions or delusions of victimization, may be expressed in righteous indignation: "They all treat me badly, want to harm me, and will poison my cup!"

This is the time to pay attention, to analyze and judge the truth behind their words.

In many cases, people with psychological abnormalities often have problems with the content of their thinking, which is obviously untrue and does not correspond to reality, but subjectively they believe that this thing exists, and they are convinced of it.

In terms of attention and memory, there are often cases of inattention and memory loss, and when asked about recent events, there may be a process of memory disorder or decrement, and the inability to remember or maintain may lead to disorientation.

As far as psychological abnormalities are concerned, self-knowledge is the main basis for determining whether a person has a mental illness. To put it in layman's terms, "if I think I am sick, the problem is usually not serious; if I think I am not sick, the problem may be serious", which reflects a person's ability to recognize and judge his or her mental state, and people who lack self-awareness often do not realize how serious their mental illness is.

3. Emotional activity. Are emotions high, or low? Are they joyful, depressed, sad, angry, or irritable? Is the emotional reflection compatible with the surrounding environment and mental factors, is it in harmony with is for the content, and is there any emotional loss of control, compulsive crying, and laughing?

For example, the doctor will conduct a psychological test of SCL-90, and after the results, he will ask what emotional anxiety will be like. If a person can accurately describe themselves with words such as envy, remorse, respect, disgust, disappointment, emotion, boredom, jealousy, etc., and also be able to describe them specifically, they will be able to indicate the state of a person's emotional activity.

For example: "My boyfriend cheated on me, he was with another woman behind my back, and I only found out about this situation six months later. It made me very angry, I hate him when I think about it, I don't love him anymore, I feel very disappointed in him, I didn't expect him to be like this."

If a person's inner activity is consistent with the coordination of emotions, psychological problems will have objective realistic factors and circumstances that produce an adaptive phase, indicating that the individual's emotions are generally stable and do not fall into the category of abnormalities.

On the contrary, if the individual's emotional activity is too extreme, the inner coordination is inconsistent, and the cognition also appears to be contrary to the fact that there will be abnormalities.

4. Volitional behavior. Whether there is a phenomenon such as a reduced will, a lazy life, a lack of seriousness and responsibility in work, a lack of activity all day long, or in serious cases, a process of rigidity, stereotypical imitation of actions, disobedience, etc., a disturbed will behavior indicates that a person's psychology will be greatly abnormal, and it is also the main way to distinguish between normal and abnormal psychology.

Overall, to distinguish whether a person has a psychological problem, a comprehensive assessment is made in terms of cognition, behavior, and emotion. When a person shows incongruence in all aspects and has a generalized process, there is a possibility of abnormal psychological behavior, which needs to be taken into account in detail.