Abnormal psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of abnormal thoughts and behavior in order to understand and change abnormal patterns of functioning. The definition of what constitutes 'abnormal' has varied across time and across cultures, and varies among individuals within cultures. Today, persistent abnormal functioning is often associated with a mental disorder. In general, abnormal psychology can be described as an area of psychology that studies people who are consistently unable to adapt and function effectively in a variety of conditions. An individual's ability to adapt and function can be affected by a number of variables, including one's genetic makeup, physical condition, learning and reasoning, and socialization.
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People have tried to explain and control abnormal behavior for thousands of years. Historically, there have been three main approaches to abnormal behavior: the supernatural, biological, and psychological traditions.[1]
In the supernatural tradition, abnormal behaviors are attributed to agents outside human bodies. According to this model, abnormal behaviors are caused by demons, spirits, or the influences of moon, planets, and stars. During the Stone Age, trepanning was performed on those who had mental illness to literally cut the evil spirits out of the victim's head. The Ancient Chinese, Egyptians, and Hebrews, on the other hand, believed that these evil demons were punishments from God, and advocated exorcism. By the time of the Greeks and Romans, mental illnesses were thought to be caused by an imbalance of the four humors, leading to draining of fluids from the brain. During the Dark Ages, many Europeans believed that the power of witches, demons, and spirits caused abnormal behaviors. People with psychological disorders were thought to be possessed by evil spirits that had to be exorcised through religious rituals. If exorcism failed, some authorities advocated steps such as confinement, beating, and other types of torture to make the body uninhabitable by witches, demons, and spirits. The belief that witches, demons, and spirits are responsible for the abnormal behavior continued into the 15th century.[2] Swiss alchemist, astrologer, and physician Paracelsus (1493-1541), on the other hand, rejected the idea that abnormal behaviors were caused by witches, demons, and spirits and suggested that people’s mind and behaviors were influenced by the movements of the moon and stars.[3]
This tradition is still alive today. Some people, especially in the developing countries and some followers of religious sects in the developed countries, continue to believe that supernatural powers influence human behaviors. However, this tradition has been largely replaced in Western academia by the biological and psychological traditions.[4]
In the biological tradition, psychological disorders are attributed to biological causes and in the psychological tradition, disorders are attributed to faulty psychological development and to social context.[4]
The Greek physician Hippocrates, who is considered to be the father of Western medicine, played a major role in the biological tradition. Hippocrates and his associates wrote the Hippocratic Corpus between 450 and 350 BC, in which they suggested that abnormal behaviors can be treated like any other disease. Hippocrates viewed the brain as the seat of consciousness, emotion, intelligence, and wisdom and believed that disorders involving these functions would logically be located in the brain.[3]
These ideas of Hippocrates and his associates were later adopted by Galen, the Roman physician. Galen extended these ideas and developed a powerful and influential school of thought with in the biological tradition that extended well into the 18th century.
Abnormal psychology consists of three core concepts: cultural and historical relativism, the principle of multiple causality and the connection between mind and body.[citation needed]
Throughout time, societies have proposed several explanations of abnormal behavior within human beings. Beginning in some hunter-gatherer societies, animists have believed that people demonstrating abnormal behavior are possessed by malevolent spirits. This idea has been associated with trephination, the practice of cutting a hole into the individual's skull in order to release the malevolent spirits.[5]
A more formalized response to spiritual beliefs about abnormality is the practice of exorcism. Performed by religious authorities, exorcism is thought of as another way to release evil spirits who cause pathological behavior within the person. In some instances, individuals exhibiting unusual thoughts or behaviors have been exiled from society or worse. Perceived witchcraft, for example, has been punished by death. Two Catholic Inquisitors wrote a manual, the Malleus Maleficarum, that became co-opted by many Inquisitors and witch-hunters. It contained an early taxonomy of deviant behavior and proposed guidelines for prosecuting deviant individuals.
The act of placing mentally ill individuals in a separate facility known as an asylum dates to 1547, when King Henry VIII of England established the St. Mary of Bethlehem asylum. Asylums remained popular throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance era.
The number of different theoretical perspectives in the field of psychological abnormality has made it difficult to properly explain psychopathology. The attempt to explain all mental disorders with the same theory leads to reductionism (explaining a disorder or other complex phenomena using only a single idea or perspective).[6] Most mental disorders are composed of several factors, which is why one must take into account several theoretical perspectives when attempting to diagnose or explain a particular behavioral abnormality or mental disorder. Explaining mental disorders with a combination of theoretical perspectives is known as multiple causality.[7]
The diathesis-stress model[8] emphasizes the importance of applying multiple causality to psychopathology by stressing that disorders are caused by both precipitating causes and predisposing causes. A precipitating cause is an immediate trigger that instigates a person's action or behavior. A predisposing cause is an underlying factor that interacts with the immediate factors to result in a disorder. Both causes play a key role in the development of a psychological disorder. [9]
A paradigm is a general viewpoint on the world and is much broader than a theory. Today's field of psychology revolves around two major paradigms for explaining mental disorders, the psychological paradigm and the biological paradigm. The psychological paradigm focuses more on the humanistic, cognitive and behavioral perspectives. The biological paradigm includes the theories that rely more on physical causes such as genetics and neurochemistry.
The standard abnormal psychology and psychiatry reference book in North America is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The current version of the book is known as DSM IV-TR. It lists a set of disorders and provides detailed descriptions on what constitutes a disorder such as Major Depressive Disorder or anxiety disorder. It also gives general descriptions of how frequent the disorder occurs in the general population, whether it is more common in males or females and other such facts. The diagnostic process uses five dimensions called 'axes' to ascertain symptoms and overall functioning of the individual. These axes are as follows
The major international nosologic system for the classification of mental disorders can be found in the most recent version of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10). The ICD-10 has been used by World Health Organization (WHO) Member States since 1994. Chapter five covers some 300 "Mental and behavioural disorders." The ICD-10's chapter five has been influenced by APA's DSM-IV and there is a great deal of concordance between the two. WHO maintains free access to the ICD-10 Online . Below are the main categories of disorders:
