Abnormality

Question 1

DEVIATION FROM SOCIAL NORMS

Answer 1

A persons thinking or behaviour is classified as abnormal is it violates from the rules about what is expected or acceptable behaviour in a particular social group. Their behaviour may be incomprehensible to others or make them feel uncomfortable or threatened

Question 2

FAILURE TO FUNCTION ADEQUATELY

Answer 2

Failure to function adequately refers to abnormality that prevent the person from carrying out the range of behaviours that society would expect from them, such as getting out of bed each day, holding down a job

Question 3

DEVIATION FROM IDEAL MENTAL HEALTH

Answer 3

Viewed in the same way as physical illness. Jahoda suggests 6 criteria necessary for ideal mental health. An absence of any of these characteristics indicates individuals as being abnormal

1. High self esteem
2. Self actualisation
3. Autonomy
4. Realistic perceptions
5. Resistance to stress
6. Mastery of the environment

Question 4

LIMITATIONS OF DEVIATION FROM SOCIAL NORMS

Answer 4

1. The concept of deviation from social norms VARIES AS TIME CHANGES, what is socially acceptable now may have not been socially acceptable 50 years ago eg homosexuality
2. Making judgements on deviance is often related to the CONTEXT OF A BEHAVIOUR. a person on a beach wearing hardly anything is regarded as normal whereas the same outfit in the classroom would be regarded as abnormal. In many cases there is not a clear line between what is abnormal and what is simply more harmless. Being rude is deviant behaviour but not evidence of a mental disorder unless excessive
3. Attempts to define abnormality in terms of social norms are obviously influenced by CULTURAL FACTORS because social norms themselves are defined by the culture. Disorders are defined or diagnosed in different ways in different cultures, meaning a diagnosis may be different for the same person in two different cultures

Question 5

LIMITATIONS OF FAILURE TO FUNCTION ADEQUATELY

Answer 5

1. WHO JUDGES? In order to determine FFA someone needs to decide if this is actually the case. It may be that the patient is experiencing personal distress at being unable to get to work or manage day to day life or they might be quite content with the situation and it is others who feel uncomfortable or judge the behaviour as abnormal
2. ADAPTIVE OR MALADAPTIVE? Some dysfunctional behaviour can actually be adaptive and functional for the individual eg transvestism
3. CULTURAL RELATIVISM - the criteria is likely to result in different diagnoses when applied to people from different cultures because the standard of one is being used to measure another. This may explain why lower class and non white patients are more often diagnosed with mental disorders - because their lifestyle are non-traditional and this may lead to a judgement of FFA

Question 6

LIMITATIONS OF DEVIATION FROM IDEAL MENTAL HEALTH

Answer 6

1. WHO CAN ACHIEVE ALL THIS CRITERIA? According to this most of us are abnormal to some degree as jahoda presented them as ideal criteria but we also have to ask how many need to be lacking before a person would be judged as abnormal. The criteria is demanding and high expectations
2. IS MENTAL HEALTH THE SAME AS PHYSICAL? Physical illnesses have physical causes such as a virus or infection and as a result this makes them relatively easy to detect and diagnose. It is possible that some mental illnesses also have physical causes but many do not they are consequences of life experiences. Therefore it is unlikely that we could diagnose mental abnormality the same way
3. CULTURAL RELATIVISM - many of the criteria are culture bound as if we apply these to people from non western groups we will most probably find a higher incidence of abnormality eg self actualisation is relevant to members of an individualist culture but not collectivists, where individuals strive for the greater good of the community rather than for self centred goals

Question 7

THE BIOLOGICAL APPROACH

Answer 7

Assumes that all mental disorders are related to some change in the body and are the same as physical illness. All behaviour is rooted in an underlying physiological process in the body and so abnormality must therefore have specific causes that lie in some bodily malfunction. Cure is only possible by removing the root cause and returning the body to its normal level of functioning

1. GENETIC INHERITANCE - abnormalities in the brain are sometimes the result of genes and so are passed from parent to child. Can study twins to see this and whether if one has a disorder the other has it as well. Product of evolutionary adaptations
2. BIOCHEMISTRY - genes tell the body how to function. They determine the levels of hormones and neurotransmitters in the brain. Genes also determine the structure of the brain, research has shown that schizophrenics have enlarged spaces in their brains, indicating shrinkage of brain tissue around these spaces

Question 8

LIMITATIONS OF THE BIOLOGICAL APPROACH

Answer 8

1. Lead to more humane treatments for mental disorders as until then it was blamed on demons or evil in the individual
2. CAUSE AND EFFECT - the available evidence does not support a simple cause and effect link between mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and altered brain chemistry.
3. there is no evidence that mental disorders are purely caused by genetic inheritance as concordance rates are never 100%.

Question 9

THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH

Answer 9

Believes that an individual’s abnormal behaviour is determined by underlying psychological conflicts of which they are largely unaware. Focuses mostly on past experiences, early parent-child relationships because they believe the majority of psychological conflicts are rooted here. Freud believed that the origins of mental disorders lie in the unresolved conflicts of childhood which are unconscious.
Throughout life the ID, ego and superego are in conflict because they represent different motives - pleasure reality and behaviour. Conflicts cause the person to experience anxiety and in order to reduce this the ego uses defences mechanisms such as repression and projection, denial and regression.
1. Early experiences - in childhood the ego is not developed enough to deal with traumas and therefore they are repressed eg a child may experience the death of a parent in early life and repress the associated feelings. Later in life other losses may cause them to re-experience the earlier loss and can lead to depression. Previously unexpressed anger about the loss is directed towards the self, causing depression