PSYC 235 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: American Psychiatric Association, World Health Organization, Mental Disorder
23 Jan 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
International classification of mental and behavioural disorders (icd-10), issued by the. Attempts at defining abnormality: concept of abnormality changes with time and differs across cultures and subcultures, several principles are commonly considered in attempts to establish criteria for abnormality. Statistical concept: behaviour is judged as abnormal if it occurs infrequently in the population, however, not all infrequent behaviours or thoughts should be judged as abnormal, ex. Innovative ideas, athletic prowess: another problem is that it is not clear how unusually a given behaviour has to be in order to be considered abnormal. Personal distress: many people who are considered to have a psychological disorder report being distressed, yet, distress is not present for all people identified as abnormal, all of us are distressed or even depressed at times, ex. In terms of evolutionary theory, a trait may be dysfunctional if it harms an organism"s capacity to reproduce successfully.
