1. UNDERSTANDING PATHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR
MENTAL ILLNESS
UNDERSTANDING
PATHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR

2. What is Mental Illness?
Deviance
Departure from cultural norms

3. Culture & Pathology Relativistic View Pancultural View
There is no standards of normality
Pancultural View
Basic standards of normality are cross-cultural

4. What is Mental Illness? Deviance Departure from cultural norms
Maladaptive Behavior (a.k.a., functional impairment)
Everyday behavior is impaired
Personal Distress
Subjective report of pain

5. Clinical Psychology: The New Look
Medical Model: Proposes that it is useful to think of abnormal behavior as a disease

6. The Medical Model Diagnosis Distinguishing one illness from another
What is it?

7. Diagnosis
Determining whether the individual’s problem meets all the criteria for a psychological disorder

8. The Medical Model Diagnosis Distinguishing one illness from another
What is it?
Etiology
Causation & developmental history of illness
Where did it come from?
Prognosis
A forecast about the probable course of an illness
Where is it going?

9. Myths of Mental Illness
Disorders are incurable
People with mental illness are violent
People with mental illness behave bizarrely

10. Who is mentally ill? Prevalence
The percentage of a population that exhibits a disorder during a specified time period
Substance Abuse
Anxiety
Mood

11. Psychology & the Law Insanity
A legal status indicating that a person cannot be held responsible for his or her actions because of mental illness
M’naghten Rule
Insanity exists when a mental disorder makes a person unable to distinguish right from wrong

12. Psychology & The Law Involuntary Commitment
Hospitalized in psychiatric facilities against one’s will
Temporary (24-72 hrs) vs. Long-term (6 mos.)
Dangerous to themselves
Dangerous to others
Need treatment (severe disorientation)