Abnormality

Dr Mollika Roy
 Normal Versus Abnormal
◈ Abnormality is deviation from the average - we simply observe what behaviors are
rare or occur infrequently in a specific society or culture and label those deviations from
the norm “abnormal.”
◈ Abnormality as deviation from the ideal.
◈ Abnormality as a sense of personal discomfort- behavior is considered abnormal if it
produces a sense of personal distress, anxiety, or guilt in an individual—or if it is harmful to
others.

◈ In total, Abnormal behavior broadly as behavior that causes people to

experience distress and prevents them from functioning in their daily lives.
 Perspectives on Abnormality
◈ MEDICAL PERSPECTIVE

◈ When an individual displays symptoms of abnormal behavior, the

fundamental cause will be found through a physical examination of the
individual, which may reveal a hormonal imbalance, a chemical deficiency,
or a brain injury.
 Perspectives on Abnormality
◈ PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE
◈ psychoanalytic perspective holds that abnormal behavior
stems from childhood conflicts over opposing wishes regarding sex
and aggression.
◈ To uncover the roots of people’s disordered behavior, the
psychoanalytic perspective scrutinizes their early life history.
 Perspectives on Abnormality

◈ Behavioral perspective view the behavior itself as the problem.

◈ Behavioral theorists see both normal and abnormal behaviors as
responses to various stimuli
◈ Those are the responses that have been learned through past
experience.
 Perspectives on Abnormality
◈COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
Cognitive approach assumes that cognitions (people’s
thoughts and beliefs) are central to a person’s abnormal
behavior.
◈A primary goal of treatment using the cognitive
perspective is to explicitly teach new, more adaptive ways
of thinking.
 Perspectives on Abnormality
◈ Humanistic Perspective
◈ Humanistic approaches focus on the relationship of the individual to society;
it considers the ways in which people view themselves in relation to others
and see their place in the world.
◈ As long as they are not hurting others and do not feel personal distress,
people should be free to choose the behaviors in which they engage.
 Classification of abnormal behavior
◈ Most professionals use the classification system, known as the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth edition, Text Revision
(DSM-V) to diagnose and classify abnormal behavior.
◈ DSM-IV-TR presents comprehensive and relatively precise definitions for more
than 200 disorders divided into 17 major categories.
Classification of abnormal behavior
 Anxiety Disorders
◈ The occurrence of anxiety without an obvious external cause that affects daily
functioning.
◈ PHOBIC DISORDER- Intense, irrational fears of specific objects or situations.
◈ For example, claustrophobia is a fear of enclosed places, acrophobia is a fear
of high places, xenophobia is a fear of strangers, social phobia is the fear of being
judged or embarrassed by others.
◈ PANIC DISORDER

◈ In another type of anxiety disorder, panic disorder, panic attacks occur that
last from a few seconds to several hours. Unlike phobias, which are
stimulated by specific objects or situations, panic disorders do not have
any identifiable stimuli.
 Anxiety Disorders
◈ Anxiety comes suddenly—and often without warning—rises to a peak, and an
individual feels a sense of impending, unavoidable doom.
◈ Although the physical symptoms differ from person to person, they may include heart
palpitations, shortness of breath, unusual amounts of sweating, faintness and
dizziness, gastric sensations, and sometimes a sense of imminent death.
◈ GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER

◈ People with generalized anxiety disorder experience long-term, persistent anxiety &
uncontrollable worry.
◈ Sometimes their concerns are about identifiable issues involving family, money, work,
or health.
◈ In other cases, though, people with the disorder feel that something dreadful is about
to happen but can’t identify the reason and thus experience “free-floating” anxiety.
 Anxiety Disorders
◈ GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER
 Anxiety Disorders
◈ Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. In obsessive-
compulsive disorder (OCD) , people are plagued by
unwanted thoughts, called obsessions, or feel that they
must carry out behaviors, termed compulsions, which
they feel driven to perform.
◈ Obsession: A persistent, unwanted thought or idea that
keeps recurring.
◈ Example: A man may go on vacation and wonder the
whole time whether he locked his house.
◈ compulsions, irresistible urges to repeatedly carry out some
act that seems strange and unreasonable even to them.
Whatever the compulsive behavior is, people experience
extreme anxiety if they cannot carry it out even if it is
something they want to stop.
 Somatoform Disorders
◈ Psychological difficulties that take on a physical (somatic) form, but for which there is
no medical cause.

◈ Hypochondriasis A disorder in which people have a constant fear of

illness & a preoccupation with their health.
◈ conversion disorder A major somatoform disorder that involves an actual
physical disturbance, such as the inability to use a sensory organ or the complete
or partial inability to move an arm or leg.
◈ For instance, one of Freud’s patients suddenly became unable to use her arm without any
apparent physiological cause.
◈ Conversion disorders often begin suddenly. People wake up one morning blind or deaf, or they
experience numbness that is restricted to a certain part of the body.
 Somatoform Disorders

◈ conversion disorder
◈ It’s important to know that conversion disorder is a real mental health
condition. It’s not faking or attention-seeking.
◈ It isn't just something in a person’s head or that they’ve imagined. While it’s
a mental health condition, the physical symptoms are still real.
◈ A person with conversion disorder can’t control the symptoms just by trying
or thinking about it.
 Dissociative Disorders
◈ Dissociative disorders are characterized by the separation (or dissociation) of different
facets of a person’s personality that are normally integrated and work together.
◈ Dissociative identity disorder (DID) (also called multiple personality disorder) displays
characteristics of two or more distinct personalities, identities, or personality fragments.
◈ Symptoms:
◈ Memory loss (amnesia) of certain time periods, events, people and personal
information.
◈ A sense of being detached from yourself and your emotions.
◈ A perception of the people and things around you as distorted and unreal.
◈ A blurred sense of identity.
 Dissociative Disorders
Dissociative amnesia A disorder in which a significant, selective memory
loss occurs.
◈ Cause
◈ Dissociative amnesia has been linked to overwhelming stress, which may be caused by
traumatic events such as war, abuse, accidents or disasters.
◈ A person with dissociative amnesia may have experienced the trauma or witnessed it.
◈ There may be a genetic (inherited) connection in dissociative amnesia, as close relatives
often have the tendency to develop amnesia.
 Dissociative Disorders
Dissociative amnesia A disorder in which a significant, selective memory loss occurs.
◈ Type
◈ Localized: Memory loss affects specific areas of knowledge or parts of a person’s life, such
as a certain period during childhood, or anything about a friend or coworker. Often, the
memory loss focuses on a specific trauma.
◈ Generalized:: Memory loss affects major parts of your life and/or identity, such as being
unable to recognize your name, job, family and friends.
◈ Fugue: With dissociative fugue, person have generalized amnesia and adopt a new identity.
Sudden and unplanned travel away from home.
Inability to recall past events or important information from the person's life.
Confusion or loss of memory about their identity, possibly assuming a new identity to make
up for the loss.
 Mood Disorders
◈ A disturbance in emotional experience that is strong enough to intrude on everyday living.
◈ MAJOR DEPRESSION. A severe form of depression that interferes with concentration,
decision making, and sociability.
◈ President Abraham Lincoln. Queen Victoria. Newscaster Mike Wallace- Each suffered
from periodic attacks of major depression.
◈ Women are twice as likely to experience major depression as men, with one fourth of all
females apt to encounter it at some point during their lives.

◈ (have to read books and other sources) . ppt is not enough.

 Mood Disorders
MAJOR DEPRESSION

◈ People who suffer from major depression experience similar feelings, but the severity
tends to be considerably greater.
◈ Symptoms
◈ They may feel useless, worthless, and lonely, & may think the future is hopeless and no one
can help them.
◈ Feelings of sadness, tearfulness, emptiness or hopelessness
◈ Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters
◈ Loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities
◈ Sleep disturbances, including insomnia or sleeping too much
◈ Tiredness and lack of energy, so even small tasks take extra effort
◈ Reduced appetite and weight loss or increased cravings for food and weight gain
 Mood Disorders
MAJOR DEPRESSION

◈ Slowed thinking, speaking or body movements

◈ Feelings of guilt, fixating on past failures or self-blame
◈ Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things
◈ Frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or suicide
◈ Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches
They may experience such feelings for months or even years.
The depth and duration of such behavior are the hallmarks of major depression.
 Mood Disorders
◈ MANIA AND BIPOLAR DISORDER

◈ Bipolar disorder, (also known as manic depression) is a serious mental illness that causes
unusual and severe mood changes.
◈ The person may experience 'highs' (clinically known as mania) and 'lows' (known as
depression), which may persist for a few days or many weeks.
◈ People experiencing mania feel intense happiness, power, invulnerability, and energy. Believing
they will succeed at anything they attempt, they may become involved in big schemes .
◈ The person may experience distinct episodes of mania and depression, and these episodes may
switch rapidly, even multiple times in one week.
◈ CAUSES OF MOOD DISORDERS
◈ genetic and biochemical roots
◈ psychological causes
◈ faulty cognitions underlie people’s depressed feelings
Mood Disorders
Mood Disorders
 Schizophrenia
◈ Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally.
◈ Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and
extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be
disabling.
◈ Characteristics reliably distinguish schizophrenia from other disorders :
◈ 1. Decline from a previous level of functioning
◈ 2. Disturbances of thought and speech
◈ 3. Delusions: , firmly held, unshakable beliefs with no basis in reality. Among the common
delusions people with schizophrenia experience are the beliefs that they are being controlled by
someone else.
◈ 4. Hallucinations and perceptual disorders : the experience of perceiving things that do not
actually exist. Furthermore, they may see, hear, or smell things differently from others
Schizophrenia
 Schizophrenia
5. Emotional disturbances- Feel inappropriate emotions. Feel cold when it is most
dramatic events. In contrast, overwhelmed for very little cause.
6. Withdrawal. People with schizophrenia tend to have little interest in others. They
tend not to socialize or hold real conversations with other. In the most extreme cases,
they do not even acknowledge the presence of other people and appear to be in their
own isolated world.
◈ Usually, the onset of schizophrenia occurs in early adulthood. Two type of early
symptoms-
1. In process schizophrenia, the symptoms develop slowly and subtly. There may be a
gradual withdrawal from the world, excessive daydreaming, and a blunting of
emotion.
2. reactive schizophrenia the onset of symptoms is sudden and conspicuous.
 Personality Disorders
◈ A disorder characterized by a set of inflexible, maladaptive behavior patterns that keep
a person from functioning appropriately in society.
◈ Antisocial personality disorder- (sociopathic personality) A disorder in which
individuals show no regard for the moral and ethical rules of society or the rights of
others.
◈ They lack any guilt or anxiety about their wrongdoing.
◈ When those with antisocial personality disorder behave in a way that injures
someone else, they understand that they have caused harm but feel no remorse.
 Personality Disorders
◈ Borderline personality disorder A disorder in which individuals have difficulty
developing a secure sense of who they are. As a consequence, they tend to rely on
relationships with others to define their identity.
◈ The problem with this strategy is that rejections are devastating. Furthermore, people
with this disorder distrust others and have difficulty controlling their anger.

◈ Narcissistic personality disorder- A personality disturbance characterized by an

exaggerated sense of self- importance.
◈ Main attribute of the narcissistic personality is an inability to experience empathy for
other people.
◈ Expect special treatment from others while at the same time disregarding others’
feelings.
Personality Disorders
 Childhood Disorders
◈ Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) A disorder marked by inattention,
impulsiveness, a low tolerance for frustration, and a great deal of inappropriate activity.
◈ Because many children occasionally show behaviors characteristic of ADHD, it often is
misdiagnosed or in some cases overdiagnosed.
◈ Only the frequency and persistence of the symptoms of ADHD allow for a correct
diagnosis, which only a trained professional can do.
 Childhood Disorders
◈ Autism spectrum disorder A severe developmental disability that impairs children’s
ability to communicate and relate to others.
◈ It usually appears in the first three years and typically continues throughout life.
◈ Children with autism have difficulties in both verbal and nonverbal communication,
and they may avoid social contact.
◈ As children with ASD become adolescents and young adults, they may have difficulties
developing and maintaining friendships, communicating with peers and adults, or
understanding what behaviors are expected in school or on the job.
◈ DSM-5 mentioned, a person must have at least two of the following behaviors:
◈ Repetitive behaviors
 Childhood Disorders
◈ Autism spectrum disorder
◈ Resistance to change
◈ Restricted interests
◈ Sensory reactivity
Self-injurious behaviors (SIB) are relatively common in autistic people, and can include
head-banging, self-cutting, self-biting, and hair-pulling.
Some individuals with ASD show unusual abilities, ranging from splinter skills (such as the
memorization of trivia).
some individuals with ASD show superior skills in perception and attention, relative to the
general population.