PSYCH257 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Psychosurgery, Midbrain, Trichotillomania

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH257
• Professor: Carolyn Wilson

Document Summary

What is abnormal psychology: scientific study aimed at describing, explaining, predicting, and controlling behaviors that are considered unusual or strange, uses psychodiagnosis: attempts to describe, assess, and systematically draw inferences about psychological disorders, therapy used to control abnormal behavior, program of systematic intervention aimed at modifying client"s behavioral, emotional, and/or cognitive state. The diagnostic and statistical manual (dsm: latest version is dsm v, widely accepted system for classifying psychological problems and disorders, dsm contains diagnostic criteria for behaviours that, fit a pattern, cause dysfunction or subjective distress, are present for a specified duration. Contextual and cultural limitations in defining abnormal psychology: shared learned behavior transmitted from generation to generation, culture is a powerful determinant of how behavior is defined and treated, cultural universality, origins, processes, and manifestation of disorders are the same across cultures, cultural relativism, what is normal/abnormal may vary from culture to culture.