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Psychological disorder: psychological dysfunction within an individual associated with distress or

impairment in functioning and a response that is not typical or culturally expected

Abnormalities:

Psychological dysfunction
- Breakdown in cognitive, emotional, or behavioural functioning
Personal Distress
- an aversive, self-focused emotional reaction (e.g., anxiety, worry, discomfort) 
Atypical or Not Culturally Expected
- could be abnormal because it is infrequent, violating social norms

- it is difficult to define “normal” and “abnormal”

- widely accepted definition:
o describes behavioral, psychological, or biological dysfunctions that are unexpected in
their cultural context and associated with present distress and impairment in functioning,
or increased risk of suffering, death, pain, or impairment

The Science of Psychopathology

Psychopathology: the scientific study of psychological disorders
Scientist- practitioners: mental health professionals

Studying psychological disorders

- clinical description
- causation (etiology)
- treatment and outcome

Presenting problem: indicating why the person has come to the clinic
Clinical description: represents the unique combination of behaviours, thought and feelings that make up
a specific disorder
- clinical refers to the types of problems or disorders that you would find in a clinic or hospital and
to the activities connected with assessment and treatment
- specify what makes the disorder different from normal behaviour or from other disorders
prevalence: how many people in the population as a whole half the disorder?
Incidence: how many new cases occur during a given period
Course: constant, episodic, time-limited ( will improve in short period)
- acute onset: begin suddenly, insidious onset: extended period
- prognosis: anticipated course of the disorder
developmental psychology: study of changes in behaviour over time

developmental psychopathology: changes in abnormal behaviour

Etiology
- the study of origins
- if a new drug or psychosocial treatment is successful in treating a disorder, it may give us some
hints about the nature of the disorder and its causes

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Historical Conceptions of Abnormal Behaviour
- supposed that agents outside our bodies and environment influence our behaviour, thinking and
emotions
- three models; supernatural, biological and psychological
- the supernatural tradition: abnormal behavior is attributed to agents outside our bodies or social
environment, such as demons, spirits, or the influence of the moon and stars;
- In the biological tradition, disorders are attributed to disease or bio- chemical imbalances
- psychological tradition, abnormal behavior is attributed to faulty psychological development and
to social context.

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