PSY100H1 Chapter 1: Chapter 1.docx

• School: UTSG
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY100H1
• Professor: Konstantine Zakzanis

Document Summary

Chapter 1 introduction: definitional and historical considerations, and. Psychopathology field concerned with nature and development of abnormal behaviour, thoughts and feelings: keep in mind that the subject offers few hard and fast answers. Challenge = remain objective: subject is personal and it is powerfully affecting, intrudes on own lives. Concepts and labels must be free of subjective feelings of appropriateness ordinarily attached to certain human phenomena. Difficult challenge facing in this field is defining abnormal behaviour. Several characteristics have been proposed as components: no single one is adequate = each has merits and captures some part of what might be a full definition. Abnormality is usually determined by presence of several characteristics at one time. Best definition: abnormal behaviour such characteristics as statistical infrequency, violation of norms, personal distress, disability or dysfunction and unexpectedness. One aspect of abnormal behaviour is that it is infrequent in the general population.