1. Chapter One
Abnormal Behavior

3. An example… Virginia Tech Massacre Assailant
What did he do? (27 k, 35 w)
Was it abnormal?
Why did he do it?
Could it have been stopped?

4. Definition
Abnormal Psychology is the Scientific study of strange or unusual behavior in order to describe, explain, predict, & control them.

5. Describe
A psychological or psychiatric evaluation determines whether a person has:
Lost contact with reality
Experiences hallucinations or delusions
Is a danger to himself or others ***

6. Explain
A psychological or psychiatric evaluation looks for causes of the behavior:
Drugs/alcohol
Biological problems (brain tumor or chemicals)
Social adjustment (friends, cultural differences)

7. Prediction
A psychological or psychiatric evaluation tries to predict the behavior in the:
Individual, using his background information.
Others, who have similar backgrounds.

8. Psychologists can control abnormal behavior through:
Therapy
Hospitalization

9. Determining Abnormality
Psychologists use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR)
Most widely used classification system
DSM-IV defines abnormal behavior as:
“clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that is associated with present distress or disability or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability or loss of freedom” (APA, 2000)

10. Definition simplified:
A behavior that departs from some norm and that harms the affected individual or others.

11. Determining Abnormality
Important questions to ask:
Distress? -- affect ability to function?
Deviance? -- rare? Culture? Situation?
Dysfunction? -- sudden? Living up to abilities?
Dangerous? – to herself or others?

12. Contextual and Cultural Limitations
Culture:
Shared learned behavior transmitted from generation to generation
Culture is a powerful determinant of how behavior is defined and treated

13. What is normal/abnormal may vary from
Debate:
Cultural Universality vs. Cultural Relativism:
Origins, processes, and manifestation of disorders are the same across cultures
What is normal/abnormal may vary from
culture to culture
How do cultural norms, values, & attitudes relate to behavior disorders?
What is universal
in human behavior?

14. Psychiatric Epidemiology
Study of Abnormal Behaviors and factors that contribute to them.

15. …which includes… Prevalence: Lifetime Prevalence: Incidence:
Percentage of people in a population with a disorder at a given time
Lifetime Prevalence:
Total proportion of people in a population who have ever had a disorder
Incidence:
Onset or occurrence of a disorder over a period of time

16. Mental Disorders in America
National Institute of Mental Health EXCELLENT resource for “Disorders Workbook” information…

17. Frequency of Mental Disorders
Gender Differences:
Major depression is twice as common in women.
The lifetime prevalence rate of alcohol dependence : twice as high in men
Antisocial personality disorder: three times as high in men.
No gender differences in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

18. Burden of Mental Disorders
Cost and burden to society is great:
At least 30% of adult Americans and 20% of American children suffer from diagnosable disorder.
By 2020, neuropsychiatric disorders in children will increase 50%
Mental illness ranks higher than cancer and other malignant diseases in how in affects individual health and productivity.

19. Common Myths about the mentally ill.
Stereotypes
Common Myths about the mentally ill.
They…
…are always recognizable by their deviant behavior.
…have inherited their disorder.
…are incurable.
…are weak.
..suffer from a deficit.
…are unstable and potentially dangerous.

20. Historical Perspectives
Prehistoric and Ancient Beliefs:
Demonology treated by trephining or exorcism

21. Historical Perspectives
Greco-Roman: Naturalistic Explanations
Hippocrates believed deviant behavior caused by brain pathology, the dysfunction of brain
Hippocrates first introduced the concept of disturbed physiology (organic processes or functions) as the basis for all illnesses, mental and physical.

22. Historical Perspectives
Middle Ages:
Back to supernatural explanations
Witchcraft:
A group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts began to display unusual behaviors: convulsive seizures, blasphemous screaming, and trance-like states. The physicians could find no physiological cause for the disturbing behaviors so the community reasoned that it must be the work of Satan and the girls must be witches. (Source: Eyewitnesstohistory.com)
Salem, Massachusetts

23. Historical Perspectives
The Renaissance:
In 1492, St. Mary of Bethlem, aka "Bedlam", opened to receive mental patients in England and was famous for it's inhumane treatment of the mentally ill.
"The Rakes Progress", by William Hogarh

24. Historical Perspectives
The rise of humanism
1793 Philippe Pinel/William Tuke removed the chains from patients to promote more humane treatment of the mentally ill.
1808 Franz Gall wrote about phrenology (the idea that a person's skull shape and placement of bumps on the head can reveal personality traits.
1834 Ernst Heinrich Weber published his perception theory of 'Just Noticeable Difference,' now known as Weber's Law (sensory research.)

25. Dorothea Dix Instrumental in lobbying for and helping establish:
first state mental
hospital in Illinois (1847)
First mental institution in
Raleigh, NC, (1849).
first public mental hospital
in Pennsylvania (1853).
…to name a few…

26. Early Causes/Treatments
Biological Viewpoint (physical basis)
Kraepelin
Symptoms occur in clusters (syndromes) to represent mental disorders, each with a unique cause, course, and outcome.
Classified mental disorders based on organic causes: metabolic disturbance, endocrine difficulty, brain disease, heredity
Evolved into DSM (now Version IV-TR) of the APA

27. Early Causes/Treatments
Psychological:
Mesmerism, Charcot (The Nancy School) , Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud all used mesmerism/hypnotism for the treatment of hysteria. Freud gave it up quickly.
Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud: Relief by talking about traumatic experiences
Cathartic method: Therapeutic use of verbal expression to release pent-up emotional conflicts

28. Causes: Early Viewpoints
Behavioral:
Stressed conditions that evoke, reinforce, extinguish directly observable behaviors
Rooted in laboratory science
Remember John Watson? B. F. Skinner? Albert Bandura?

29. Contemporary Trends The Drug Revolution:
“one of the great medical advances of the 20th century” (Sue, et al.)
Started with lithium (1949), then Thorazine.
Reduces symptoms so therapy would work.
Only Psychologists in AZ – NM, LA, OR allow psychologists to prescribe.
Success of psychopharmacology spawned new interest in brain-behavior relationship

30. Implications
The study of abnormal psychology is complex and influenced by historical time
No single explanation fits all situations
Multipath model is necessary in attempting to understand such complex processes
Multipath model consists of following factors:
Biological
Psychological – Psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanism
Social – families, environment
Sociocultural