Psychological disturbance will certainly touch us, to some extent,

at a certain point in our lives. Just as medical students may develop

the notion that may have the physical diseases that they have just
learned to diagnose, students in abnormal psychology might see in
themselves the symptoms of abnormal behavior. There may be two
reasons behind such thinking. First, as you study the causes of
mental disorders, you will probably find at least some of them in
your own family background. Most people, when asked to search
their past for experiences that could lead to some form of a
psychological collapse, would perhaps not find it difficult to do.
Second, you yourself have probably experienced to some degree a
number of these symptoms that you will be reading about, just as
everyday or most of us have.
 Hardly do we encounter an individual who have never become
anxious or depressed, not felt physically ill or irritated when
experiencing conflict, or not become so frustrated and angry when
the whole world seems to be against him. While all of us may have
had the same experiences and symptoms as do persons diagnosed to
be abnormal, most of us have been able to go through life’s
challenges without suffering from an actual breakdown in our
psychological functions. The enormous task of identifying that break
point will definitely be difficult, if not virtually impossible, but is
certainly one of the most challenging tasks in the whole realm of the
field of psychology.
 The Scope of Abnormal Psychology

What is abnormal behavior? This is often a question that is

difficult to answer. Try thinking about what might have in mind
when you come across the word “abnormal” in the context of human
behavior. Go through each of the items below and try figuring out
which of these you would consider as abnormal.
• Wearing a punk attire in a formal gathering.
• Sucking one’s thumb when anxious.
• Being unable to sleep, eat, or study after being hurt emotionally.
• Refusing to eat for days in order to stay slim.
• Taking medicine whenever one can hardly sleep.
• Sweating profusely at the through of having to speak before a
large audience.
• Holding hands with a same-sex member in public.
• Believing that one has God-giving powers to heal or cure the sick.
• Walking back and fouth to relieve oneself of tension.
• Engaging in thorough washing of hands after coming home from a
ride in the MRT.
• Bringing a “good luck charm” to an awards night.
• Drinking eight bottles of beer each day in order to socialize with
friends after office hours.
 What then, have been your yardsticks in deciding which ones in
the list above are “normal” and which are not? As you have
experienced with the foregoing activity, the distinction is often
difficult to make and it may even appear arbitrary. While it is
virtually impossible to arrive at an absolute definition of abnormal
behavior, it is nevertheless necessary that a working definition be
made.
Definition Abnormal Behavior
 There are two different ways to approach the problem of definition:
deviation’ from the average or normal, and deviation from the optimal.
The statistical average gives one framework for thinking about
normality. The average is the arithmetical mean on a given measure,
arrived at by dividing the sum of all the scores by the number of people
whose characteristics are measured in a distribution.
On the other hand, comparing a person’s behavior with one’s
concept of the ideal of human functioning characterizes the optimal
approach. One problem with the use of this basis is its subjectivity
especially in terms of how far from optimal one has to be for it to be
considered abnormal. For instance, is it normal to be completely worry-
free?
Other ways of defining abnormality
1. Cultural relativism view that norms among different cultures
set the standard for what counts as normal behavior, which
implies that abnormal behavior can only be defined relative to
the these norms; no universal definition of abnormality is
therefore possible; only definitions of abnormal relative to a
specific culture are possible.
2. Statistical deviance view that norm behaviors are those
performed by a statistical majority of people and that abnormal
behaviors are those that deviate from the majority occurring
only rarely or infrequently.
3. Subjective Discomfort view that a person must both suffer as
a result of a certain behavior and wish to be rid in order for it to
qualify as abnormal.
4. Mental disease or mental illness criterion view that abnormal
behavior are those that result from a mental illness; this view
does not explain how “mental illness” is itself defined.
THE CONSENSUS
Maladaptive term to behaviors that cause people who have them
physical or emotional harm, prevent them from functioning in
daily life, and/or indicate that they have lost touch with reality
and/or cannot control their thoughts and behavior. (also called
dysfunctional)
 Psychologists have tried to reserve that label maladaptive for
behavior that have one or more of the following characteristics:
1. They are physically damaging to the individual.
2. They cause the individual emotional suffering or harm.
3. They severely interfere with the individual’s ability to function
in daily life.
4. They indicate that the individual has lost touch with reality
and cannot control his or her behaviors or thoughts.
 Maslow 1990 – Maintains that mental illness should not be
viewed in such simple terms as “normal” and “abnormal”, but
rather in terms of degree of humanness. He considered mental
illness or personality decompensation as any behavior that fails
to foster self-realization and transcendence at any period during
the life cycle. He added that personality decompensation is
reached when total stress far exceeds total normal adjustment
capacities.
Origins Abnormal Behavior
 Causes of abnormal or deviant behavior vary to some degree
among all types of disorders. However, stress appears to be one
domination element common to all of them. Many studies have
shown that animals start to exhibit abnormal behavior when they
experience greater stress – caused by frustrating experiences or in
other ways- than they can bear.
The difference between normal and abnormal behavior is
apparently anchored on the amount of stress the person fells and
his ability to handle such an amount of stress. Both factors are
influenced by one’s biological make-up, psychological
characteristic, and the environment.
1. Biological Influences - individual differences exist in both
glandular activity and sensitivity of autonomics system – perhaps
more so in the activity of brain centers linked with the emotions.
2. Psychological Influences – our acquired psychological traits
also play a major role in determined how much anxiety and
stress we are likely to experience and to what extent we can
tolerate without being crippled by abnormal behavior.
3. Environmental Influences – The environmental to which we
have been exposed from birth onwards also influence the
development of a person or an individual.
Characteristics of the Normal
and the Abnormal Personality
 Is it abnormal to have faith in witchcraft?
- it was not considered so by Americans long time ago.
Is it abnormal for a young woman to faint from the excitement of attending a
dance or the embarrassment of hearing vulgar words?
- it was not so during the Victorian era in England.
Is committing suicide abnormal?
- to most people, it may seem so, but not in the Far East, where a Buddhist priest
who commits suicide as a form of political protest is regarded as demonstrating
strength of character, or in Japan, where hara-kiri is looked upon as a sign of chivalry.
Is it abnormal to take away a child at age three from the home to live or to die on
his own?
- it is not so, among the members of an African tribe called Ik, who consider it as
something ordinary.
 By and large, a useful working definition of abnormal behavior
involves the three points that have been mentioned. An abnormal
personality trait or type of behavior is statistically infrequent or rare
in occurrence or unusual, considered by most people as such, and a
source of unhappiness to the person who possesses or demonstrates
it (Kagan et al., 1992).
 What makes up a normal personality?
According to Neufeld (1992), most psychologists would describe the normal
personality with the following six points being the main the consideration:
1. Being normal does not mean being perfect.
2. Normal people are realistic.
3. Normal people can “roll with the punch”.
4. Normal people possess a certain amount of enthusiasm and spontaneity.
5. Normal people have a good deal of autonomy or independence.
6. Normal people are capable of feeling and demonstrating affection and of
building close relationships with other – not necessarily many others, but a
chosen few. They can demonstrate love and be loved in return.
The Role Of Theory In
Abnormal Psychology
 Theories have always been of utmost importance to the understanding of
deviant behavior. They offer contrasting perspectives from which to
approach the possible etiologies or causes of breakdown in psychological
functioning. Likewise, a theoretical perspective provides a logical frame of
reference in which to gather and analyze research data (Kagan et al., 1994).
In actual practice, experienced clinicians do not strictly adhere to one
single theoretical orientation. When collecting data on abnormalities in
psychological functioning, psychologists subscribing to various orientations
are likely to probe into the various aspects of an individual. Thus, they are
not likely to embrace one theoretical perspective but instead a combination
of these, especially if the treatment of a particular client demands it.
The Psychodynamic Perspective
this perspective emphasizes the unconscious dimensions of behavior. The first
personality theory was Frued’s Psychoanalytic Theory, which described a
hypothetical structure of personality and the ways that parts of the personality
interact with one another. Freud believed that humans seek gratification of their
instinctual motives, but are constrained to do so by society’s standards of behavior.
Healthy people are able to meet satisfaction of their instinctual desires without
deviating from the standards set by their society, while unhealthy ones develop
various symptoms and difficulties in adjusting or coping with the societal
restrictions due their failure to maintain a balance among the structural components
of personality. Individual psychologically develop as they go through a series of
stages in which various parts of the body appear as most sensitive to excitation
 Later psychodynamic theorists, called Neo-Fruedians, have modified some facets
of Frued’s theory to give impetus to the relationship of the individual to society in
general and have focus on significant others as influences on personality development
and on onset of psychological disorders.

1. Alfred Adler has the belief that loss of social interest, or a turning away from
fellow humans, is the cause of psychological disorders.
2. Karen Horney proposed that the distress experienced by people with psychological
disorder stem from sense of alienation and tyrannical demands of an idealized
self-image (the “should”) resulting from their becoming distanced from their
actual needs and desires.
3. Carl Gustav Jung considered the imbalance between conscious actions and
repressed unconscious components of the personality as the source of disorder.
4. Erik Erickson whose theory is strongly grounded in Freudian psychoanalysis,
particularly in its focus on unconscious roots of personality and psychological
disorder, had the belief that development proceeds throughout the life span in a series
of eight crises, which, if unresolved, has particularly serious consequences for
later development.
5. Harry Stack Sullivan who emphasized interpersonal relationships, held the view
that people with problems in living have often experienced feeling of anxiety in
relating to parent figures, which may hamper their ability to develop appropriate
forms of communication with others and lead to disturbances in both thought and
language.
 A group of object relations theories has proposed instead at the core of personality
lies interpersonal relationships. They believed that the unconscious mind is peopled
with images of parents and of the child’s relationships with them and that various forms
of psychological disorders originate from a person’s defective sense of self. Some
disorders are due to failure to develop or form an integrated sense of self early in one’s
life. Other disorders may arise due to a parent’s lack of empathy, or sharing of the
child’s perspective or point of view, as well as failure to mirror back or to take pride in
the child’s achievements, no matter how small, that often results in a desperate need for
attention.
Prominent object relations theorist:
1. Melanie Klein conceived ideas and techniques of therapy that are still regarded a
radical departure from conventional psychoanalytic theory and practice. She
maintained that the infant has an active fantasy life built around the parents and that
he must form an integrated view of his mother, incorporating both her nurturing and
depriving aspects in order to build his own self-image
2. D.W. Winnicot a British pediatrician and psychiatrist received given psychoanalytic
training from Klein, continued the tradition begun by Anna Frued and her mother.
She believed that the young children’s possessions, which she called transitional
objects, such as teddy bears and security blankets, play a pivotal role in their
development in that they help the child build a sense of self that is separate from the
mother.
3. Heintz Kohut held the view that a disturbed sense of self accounts for why
psychological disorders develop.
4. Margaret Mahler psychotic disturbance or a severe disturbance in the sense of self
of the child may originate from the mother’s failure to strike a balance between her
child’s dependence and independence.
The Humanistic Perspective
This perspective holds that people have an inherent, inborn drive toward maximum
realization of their fullest potential. Once this drive, for one reason or another becomes
inhibited, the ultimate consequence will be psychological disorders.
1. Carl Rogers developed the person-centered approach. This focuses on each
individual’s uniqueness, the significance of letting him achieve maximum fulfilment
of this potentials, and his need to honestly confront the reality of his experiences in the
world. According to Rogers, psychological disorder is likely to develop in a person,
who, as a child, was revised by to very critical and demanding parents. Such
criticism could make the child fell overly anxious about doing things that they do
not approve of, thus setting the stage for a lifetime of low self-esteem. Rogers
likewise, believed that the client, who has the potential for self-change and growth,
should set the course of his own therapy and not the therapist, thus evolving a client-
centered therapy. He held the view that if the clinician conveys empathy and concern
for the client, appears to be genuinely honest, and at an optimal level of psychological
functioning, psychological change in the client is expected to occur.
2. Abraham Maslow on the other hand, defined psychological disturbance on the basis
of degree of deviation or departure from the so-called ideal state of being. To
develop beyond the lowest needs in the hierarchy, called “deficit needs”, children
should feel a stable sense of being physically cared for, being safe from harm, being
loved, and esteemed or looked up to. He added that suppression of the higher-level
needs which are needed to achieve actualization may lead to psychological disorders,
as when an individual raised in a dishonest environment becomes deprived of the need
for truth, and as a consequence, become mistrusting.
The Family Systems Perspective
This theoretical orientation is premised on the belief that the personality of an
individual cannot be fully understood without considering to the pattern of interactions
and relationships within the family. It maintains that the cause of psychological
disorders is disturbances in the person’s role within the family. Such disturbances often
originate from defective communication pattern, such as the use of paradoxical
communication or conveying messages with two contradictory meanings. Deviant
structural patterns of child and parent relationships, such as in enmeshed families, in
which family members have become so closely involved in each other’s lives that they
find it extremely difficult to establish relationship outside their family, is another factor.
Lastly, there is the prevalence of unwholesome system of interacting relationship
within the family as a whole.
The Behavioral Perspective
Behavioral theorists avoid making elaborate speculations about the “why’s” of
behavior since they prefer looking at its “what’s”. They seek to establish the functional
relationships between environmental events and the individual’s behaviors and view
psychological disorders as behavioral responses controlled by the environment rather
than by the conditions that lie within the person.
1. The paradigm of classical condition by Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov, which
involved the pairing off of a previously neutral stimulus with one that automatically
evokes a reflexive response, has widely considered as a model for the acquisition of
dysfunctional emotional reactions.
2. In Burrhus F. Skinner’s operant conditioning, the persons learns a complex
volitional behavior through a process of shaping, providing reinforcement for
behaviors that increasingly come to resemble a desired outcome, like providing praise
to an individual with acrophobia (fear of heights) each time he ventures higher up a
flight of stairs. Through manipulation of the types and schedules of reinforcement,
behaviorists were able to show different patterns for acquiring and maintaining new
behaviors.
 The process of acquiring or learning new behaviors through imitation of the
behavior of another person, called modeling, has been extensively studied by
behaviorists who focus on social learning. Social learning theorists are primarily
concerned with studying and understanding how individuals develop psychological
disorders through their relationships with others and through observation of others’
behavior. Some theorists within this perspective likewise give emphasis on social
cognition, the way people perceive themselves, and others and consequently, form
judgments about the causes of certain behaviors. Social learning and social cognition
perspectives maintain that it is not only direct reinforcements that influence behavior of
people, but also indirect reinforcements that they acquire by watching others engaging
in particular behaviors and seeing them either getting rewarded or punished.
The Biological Perspective
There is a marked evidence for the relative influence of physiological states on
certain psychological phenomena such as emotions and cognitive processes. Factors
that influence the nervous system, such as lack of adequate sleep, too much drinking of
alcohol, or eating too much of food rich in calories, can consequently influence one’s
mood and thinking. It is a known fact that there is a connection between disturbances in
some aspect of bodily functioning and psychological disorder.
Similarly, data linking biology with psychological disturbances have revealed that
just as people inherit characteristics such as hair or eye color, height, intelligence,
creativity, and the like, they also inherit predispositions to developing specific
disorders. It is now established that such disorders as diabetes and heart disease may
run in families. Likewise, during the 1980s, it was shown that relatives of people with
mood disorders are much more likely to inherit a predisposition to developing these
disorders themselves.
 Historical Background of Abnormal Psychology
As customs and traditions become gradually modified, as science continues to
advance, as man’s civilization becomes increasingly complex, attitudes toward
behavior disorders change.
You will see in the succeeding presentation how the field of mental health has
gotten into the contemporary understanding of the causes and treatments of various
ramifications of psychological disorders. Hence, there is a likelihood that ideas about
them, which have taken a great deal of twists and turn throughout recorded history,
shall continue to evolve.
 Four major trends run through the fascinating historical evolution of present-day
psychology: the mystical or magical, the empirical, the scientific or natural, and the
humanitarian.
The mystical or magical theme regards abnormal behavior as the product of possession
by evil spirits or the demon.
The empirical trend views that psychological disorders must be investigated by
experimental laboratory methods, that knowledge must be based on experience rather
than speculation.
The scientific or natural approach looks upon behavior disorders as due to natural
causes, like biological imbalances, faulty learning processes, or emotional stressors.
The humanitarian view explains psychological disorders as the result of cruelty, non-
acceptance, or poor living conditions. Along this line, sympathy for the mentally ill has
grown; jails have been replaced by asylums, which have been replaced by hospitals.
 Following is a table summarizing the notions of beliefs regarding abnormal
behavior as well as the individuals whose contributions to our understanding of
psychopathology cannot be overemphasized.
 PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Prehistoric Era Trephining- drilling holes on the skull
surface – would release evil spirits in a
possessed person. It was also used to
treat medical problems

People who showed signs of possession

were subjected to exorcism involving
outright torture like being starved,
whipped, beaten, forced to eat or drink
foul-tasting and disgusting concoctions;
executed or allowed to wanter around
the countryside.

Pre-classical Era Causes of psychological disorders reside Heraclitus (535-

within the individual, and not the result 475 B. C.)
of external forces.
The source of mental disorder lies in the Pythagoras (500
brain. B.C.)
PERIOD BELIEFS
Four important bodily fluids
influence physical and mental
health: black bile
(depression), yellow bile
(anxiety and irritability0,
phlegm (indifference), and
blood (instability in mood
shifts).
CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Hippocrates (460-377
B.C.) Father/ Founder
of Modern Medicine
Plato (429-397 B.C.) Differentiated rational
from irrational.
Aristotle (384-322 Determined the causes
B.C.) of disorders which can
be psychogenic or
physiogenic.
Alexander the Great Developed the
(356-322 B. C.) sanitarium for the
mentally disturbed.
PERIOD BELIEFS
Psychological problems could
result from emotional
disturbances and
psychological disorders have
diagnostic distinctions.
Abnormal behavior could
have psychological origins
rather than result only from
abnormalities in bodily organs
or fluids.
CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Aesclepiades (120-40 B. -Developed Music Therapy
C.) -Identified delirium
-Differentiate acute from
chronic and hallucination
from delusion.
Aratheus (Between 1st and Identified manic depression.
2nd century)
Galen (130-200 A. D.) The first to conduct animal
experiments to study the
workings of the internal
organs. His approach formed
the basis of the scientific
model of abnormal behavior.
Developed Hu-moral Theory
(endocrine imbalance).
 PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Avicenna (1080-1141) Arabian psychologists
Averhaus (1136-11980 who started humanistic
approach.
Middle Ages and Many natural Ideas about Christian
Renaissance phenomena including charity and the need to
psychological and help poor and sick
physical illnesses were people formed the basis
explained by for humanitarian
superstition, astrology, approaches and
and alchemy and treatment.
magical rituals. Origin of
“mania/manic” from
people celebrating on
occasion – St. Vitus
Dance/ mass Madness
(Tarantanism). Hospital
of St. Mary of
Bethlehem in 1472 was
named the first asylum
in lunatic.
 PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Johann Spranger and Authored the “Witches Hammer”
Henrick Kraimer which is about the Malleus
Mallefecarum or the “Ships of
Fools”
Pope Innocence VII Passed bill “Summus Deserantes
(1484) Affectibus” condemning witches.
St. Vincent de Paul Developed the hospital from the
(1490-1541) and Juan sanitarium and asylum.
Luis Vives (1492-1540)
Johann Weyer (1515- Wrote the book “Deception of
1588) Demons” which is against witches.
18th Century To be psychologically Vincent Chiarugi (1959- Eliminated physical restraints among
(Reform disturbed meant to be 120) patients and provided them with
Movement) insensitive to extremes activities to occupy their time.
of heat and cold or to In his writings, he emphasized the
the cleanliness of the need to make mental hospitals safe
surroundings. and comfortable.
PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Philippe Pinel (1745- Made changes to
1826) improve the living
Jean-Baptiste Pussin conditions of mental
patients. Pussin
performed the bold
gesture of freeing
patients from their
chains.
The treatment of William Tuke Established the York
psychologically Retreat which applied
disturbed individuals moral treatment, an
needed reforms. approach anchored on
the philosophy, that
people can, with proper
care, develop self-
control, over their owned
disturbed behaviors.
PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
The care of psychologically Benjamin Rush (1745- Placed the psychologically disturbed
disturbed people needed to 1813) Father of patients in separate wards, gave
be initiated. American Psychiatry. them occupational therapy, and
prohibited visits from curiosity
seekers who frequent mental
hospitals for entertainment.
Some rather barbaric Recommended invoking terror as a
interventions were based on way to treat psychologically
scientific principles. disturbed patients, like being tie to a
“tranquilizer” chair, being
submerged in cold shower baths, and
frightened that they would be killed.
Psychologically disturbed Dorothea Dix (1802- Campaign for the proper treatment
people should not be forced 1887) of psychologically disturbed people
to live in poorhouses and which led to the building of more
jail. state-funded public hospitals to
provide care for them.
 PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Treatment in Clifford Beers Established the National
psychiatric Committee for Mental Hygiene
institutions should composed of a group of people
not be harsh. who worked to improve treatment
of those in mental institutions.
Psychological The brain and not
Era spiritual possession
is the cause of
abnormal behavior.
Magnetic fluids fills Anton Mesmer (1734- Invented a device called a
the universe, and 1815) “magnetizer”, in which people in
thus, is the bodies of groups are cured by having them
all living creatures. hold hands around a tub
containing chemicals and irons;
walked around them holding a
magnetic wand. Define the
“trance state”.
PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Changes took place in James Braid (1795- His explanation of hypnosis played an
people’s minds outside 1860) important role in the mind can be
their conscious powerful in causing and removing
awareness that could symptoms.
explain the “cures”
attributed to
mesmerism; their
being open to
suggestions resulted in
removal of their
symptoms.

Hypnotic sleep Ambrose-Auguste Used hypnosis in treating mental

induction could be Liebault (1837-1904) disorders.
used as a substitute for
drugs.

Hippolyte-Marie One of the major hypnosis in Europe,

Bernheim (1837-1919) both Liebault and Bernheim gained
international attention for advances in
the use of hypnosis as a treatment for
nervous and psychological disorders.
PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Hypnotizability was a Jean-Martin Charcot Both Charcot and Freud introduced
symptom of a (1856-1939) the “cathartic” method (a cleaning of
neurological disorder and Father of Modern the mind’s emotional conflicts through
that only people who Neurology talking about them) which became the
suffer from this disorder forerunner of psychotherapy, the
cold be treated by treatment of abnormal behavior
hypnosis. through psychological techniques.
Freud developed psycho-analytical and
system of practice relying heavily on
the unconscious mind, inhibited sexual
impulse, early development, and the
use of “free association” technique,
and dream analysis.

Sigmund Freud (1856- Developed the “catharsis (tic)

1939) Father of method”. Defined “chimney
Psychology sweeping”, which means taking care
of mental disorders.

Organic Mental Disorders come William Griesinger Defined the role of brain in emotional
Period from within the individual. (1818-1860) disturbance.
PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) Influenced the development of
the American psychiatric
movement and improved the way
psychological disorders were
classified. His concepts of manic-
depression and dementia praecox
are precursors of bipolar disorder
and schizophrenia, respectively.
Pierre Janet (1859-1949) Identified hysteria as a disorder.
Late 20th Patients in psychiatric Community programs took place
Century hospitals should not of the hospital, including social
(Modern be restrained clubs, vocational rehabilitation
Period) physically. facilities, day hospitals, and
psychiatric clinics. People were
placed in halfway houses after
their discharge from the hospital,
providing a supportive
environment where they could
learn the social skills needed to
enter the community.
PERIOD BELIEFS CONTRIBUTOR CONTRIBUTION
Karl Ludwig Defined catatonic
Karlbaum schizophrenia.
Edward Hecker Defined
hebephrenic
schizophrenia.
RESEARCH METHODS IN THE STUDY OF
ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR

1.The Scientific Method

2.The Experimental Method
3.The Correlational Method
4.The Case Study Method
 ASSESSING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
I.PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT
-It involves an evaluation of a person’s psychological status with particular goals in mind. The goals
include establishing a diagnosis with a certain type of a disorder, determining intellectual capacity, predicting
appropriateness for a particular job, or evaluating mental competence to stand trial. Depending on what is to
be answered by the assessment, psychologist had to make a choice regarding the most appropriate tools
(Halgin and Whitbourne, 1994).
• Interview - The most used mode for developing an understanding of a client and the current problems,
past history, and future aspirations is the clinical interview. In general, an assessment interview is comprised
of a series of questions asked in a face-to-face encounter.
In clinical setting, the most commonly used are :
1. Flexible interview – set of open-minded questions aimed at looking into the client’s reason for being
in treatment, his symptoms, health status, family background, and the questions which are anchored on what
his hypothesis is about his client’s verbal responses as well as the latter’s nonverbal behaviors such as eye
contact, body position, tone of voice, hesitations, and other emotional cues. A significant part of this is
history-taking, in which the clinician seeks to obtain, in his client’s own words, a chronology of past events,
both in the life of the client and that of his relatives. A personal history covers significant events such as school
performance, employment, and relationship. The family history includes sequence of major events in the lives
of the relatives of the client.
2. Standardized Interview – consists of highly structured series of questions, a
predetermined system of wording and sequence. It is particularly useful in researches
aimed at establishing the reliability and validity of psychiatric diagnoses. Unlike the
flexible interview which may require extensive knowledge about psychological
disorders, either for administration or for scoring, standardized interview involves
questions developed through research, that can be rated using some objective criteria.
• Mental Status Examination – refers to the procedure for assessment of current
functioning in a number of areas such as behavior, orientation, content of thought,
thinking style and language, affect and mood, perceptual experiences, senses of self,
motivation, intelligence and insight. (Lugo and Hershey, 1991)
• Psychological Testing – A psychological test is a measuring tool applied in a
consistent and systematic fashion to measure a sample of behavior (Schultz, 1989). It
covers a broad range of measurement techniques and involves a process of having
people reveal information about some aspects of their psychological functioning,
such as intellectual ability, personality, emotional state, attitude, and behavior that
reflects their lifestyle and interest.
Let us take an in-depth glance at some of the criteria (covered by
the general term psychometrics , which literary means
“measurement of the mind”) that plays a major role in the
development of a good psychological test (Anastasi, 1990)
1. Standardization – Implies uniformity of the conditions and procedures for the administering
and scoring at test. Particularly important is the requirement is that each person taking the
test receive the same test instruction and given the same amount of time to finish working on
the test.
2. Reliability – This pertains to the consistency of response in a test. A test that is reliable yields
similar, but not necessarily identical data or information upon repeated measurement with
the same group of individuals.
3. Validity – This refers to the degree with which a test measures what is purports to measure.
4. Objectivity – This refers to the manner of scoring the test, being free of subjective judgment
or bias on the part of the person scoring it.
5. Norms – These are the frame of reference, or a point of comparison used so that the
performance of an individual can be compared with that of other similar individual.
• Personality and Diagnostic Testing – To supplement interview data to
develop a better understanding of an individual or to formulate his treatment
plan, personality and diagnostic test are useful.
There are two main types of personality tests : self-report and projective,
which differ in the nature of their items and in the manner in which they are
scored. (Halgin and Whitbourne, 1994)
1. Self-report clinical inventories – contain standardized questions with fixed
response categories that the test-taker completes independently. He reports
extent to which the responses apply to or characterize him. His scores on the
test items are taken together and often combined into a number of scales.
The most commonly used of these self-report inventories is the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality inventory or the MMPI. The MMPI which is used for
clinical diagnosis, yields a profile of the test-taker’s personality and
psychological difficulties.
• Projective Testing – a technique in which the client is presented with a n
ambiguous stimulus item or task and asked to respond by providing his own
meaning or interpretation of such. The examinee derives meaning on some
unconscious issues or conflicts; In other words, he “projects” his inner,
unconscious onto the item task on hand. The advantage of this technique is that
it allows disclosure of features of an individual’s personality or concern that could
not easily be detected through more overt or obvious technique.
The Rorschach Inkblot Test is the most popular of the projective techniques and
was named after Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach, who made it in 1911 and
published in 1921 his results of using this technique for ten years. Although he did
not invent the inkblot technique (which was proposed by Binet, 1896), he was the
1st to use standard inkblots to assess psychological disorders (Nietzel et, al, 1991).
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), another widely recognized and used
projective test works on the premises as the Rorschach, that is, when presented
with ambiguous stimuli, the examinee may reveal hidden aspects of his personality.
II. BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT
- It involves a number of measurement techniques based on some objective
recording’s of the individual’s observable behaviors; since the late 1970s though,
recording of thoughts and feelings as reported by the person, in addition to his
outward actions, have been made part of his behavioral assessment. Such
techniques are used to enable the clinician to identify problem behaviors,
understand what maintains these behaviors and evolve and refine appropriate
interventions to change these behaviors. (Nietzel, e, al, 1991).
1. Behavioral Self-Report – method of assessment whereby the client provides
information regarding frequency of his particular behaviors. The rationale
underling this technique is the belief that information about troublesome
behavior should be taken from the client who has the closest access to crucial to
understanding and treating his problematic behavior.
Behavioral interviews are specialized form of interview that focuses on the
behavior under consideration or investigation as well as what preceded and
followed the behavior. Events preceding are called antecedents while those
that follow or come after the behavior are called consequents.
Self-monitoring is a technique of behavioral self-report in which, the client
keeps and maintains a record of the frequency of his specified behaviors.
Through the use of this technique, assessment of this behavior and of itself
becomes therapeutic. (Neufeld, 1992)
Behavioral checklists and inventories, which appeal to both clinicians and
clients because they are generally economical and easy to use, may also lend
support the assessment or recording of troublesome behaviors. In answering a
behavioral checklist or inventory, the checks off or rates whether certain
events or experiences have taken place.
2. Behavioral Observation – As both clinicians and research is have become
concerned about the chance that clients might “fake” or distort responses to self-
report inventories in order to respond in more socially desirable ways, behavioral
explanation has come out as significant component of behavioral assessment. The
method involves observing the client and recording the frequency of specific
behaviors along with any relevant situational factors.
STEPS IN BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATION
• The selection of target behaviors, behavior of interest or concern.
• Define target behavior in measurable terms.
Behavioral observations taking place in natural context where target behavior
occurs is termed Vivo Observation.
Client’s behavior is affected by the knowledge that it is being observed, a
phenomena called reactivity arises.
Analog observation takes place in a contrived setting or context one specifically
designed for observing target behavior.
III. PHYSIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT
- By assessing bodily response in certain situations, a great deal of
information can be obtained about an individual. For example, when a person is
afraid, we might not see any observable behavioral manifestations that may
lead us to conclude that he is indeed afraid. However, there are many changes
taking place in his boy indicating the presence of fear.
John et al. (1988) classified physiological assessment into three type:
1. Psychophysiological – produces evidence of disturbed bodily functioning
that may cause a person to demonstrate a psychological disorder. It has
been well-established that people with certain forms of severe psychological
disorder have abnormalities in their own body, sometimes originating in the
brain. There are several psychophysiological systems that have called the
attention of behavioral psychologists. Changes that take place in an
individual’s cardiovascular system, muscles and skin are obtained.
a. Several devices can be used to measure heart activity, the most common of
which is an electrocardiogram (ECG), a measure of electrical impulses that
pass trough the heart. Blood pressure, the resistance offered by the arteries
to the blood as it is pumped from the heart is another psychophysiological
measure.
b. Through the use of electromyography (EMG), a measure of electrical activity
of the muscles, and changes in a muscle can be assessed, especially in the
level of a tension, as well in the assessment and treatment of tension-related
disorders like headache, which involve muscle contractions.
c. Even minor electrical changes in the skin caused by sweating, called the
electro-dermal or galvanic skin response, which is a sensitive indicator of
emotional responses such a fear and anxiety, can be measured. For the brain
activity, the most commonly used assessment tool is the
electroencephalogram (EEG), a measure of changes in the electrical activity
of the brain. It is valuable not only for diagnosis of brain abnormalities, but
also for measurement of the brain activity and inference of the depth of state
of relaxation in a client who is taught relaxation methods.
2. Physical – A wide array of psychological symptoms can arise from or be
associated with physical problems. Hence, a clinician, to understand a nature of a
client’s psychological problems, must also consider that the problem might
originate from or be worsened by some physical disturbance. Besides the EEG,
which is often included in diagnostic procedures involving the brain, several other
procedures have been developed for the past two decades providing invaluable
regarding the structure and functioning of the human body ( Halgin and
Whitbourne, 1994).
They include:
a. Computerized axial tomography (CAT or CT) scan provides image of the
brain through an ingenious computerized combination of many thousands of
separate x-rays taken from different axes or vantage point through a person’s
head.
b. Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) – sometimes called the Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance (NMR), replaces the CAT because of its increased power and
precision.
c. When the clinician wants some detailed information about the brain’s
neutral activity, the positron emission tomography (PET) can be used. The
procedure involves of small amount of radioactive sugar into a person’s
bloodstream, following which a computer would measure the varying levels of
radiation in various parts of the brain and yield a multi-colored cross-sectional
image.
3. Neurometrics – deals with the measurement and analysis of the activity of
the brain, evolved a recently developed technology called brain electrical
activity mapping (BEAM). It is a procedure involving attachment of
electrodes to a person’s head to measure his brain activity. A computer then
analyzes the information regarding the brain wave patterns, and construct a
multi-colored pattern of brain activity.
IV. NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT
- This kind of assessment involves gathering or obtaining data or information
about a client’s brain functioning on the basis of his performance in psychological
test.
• Halstead Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery – Most well-known
neuropsychological assessment instrument, a series of tests designed to gauge
sensorimotor, perceptual and speech functions. Each test involves a specific task
measuring a particularly hypothesized brain behavior relationship.
• Luria Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery – host of individual tests aimed at
detecting specific forms of damage. The battery is comprised of 269 tasks,
organized into 11 subtests including motor and tactile functions and receptive
speech.
• Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test and Benton Revised Visual Retention Test –
assess general visual perception, motor coordination, memory, concepts of time
and space, and ability to organize can be used as initial screening devices.
CATEGORIES OF MENTAL OR BEHAVIOR DISORDER

• PERSONALITY DISORDER
Individuals who suffer from episodes of schizophrenia, periods of
depression, or attacks of anxiety are in a way like those who are vulnerable to
physical illness such as migraine, headaches, stomach upsets, etc. While they
have a hold over their symptoms, they are often described as “not being
themselves”. When they recover, they are said to be “back to their old selves”.
Personality behavior, ma became obvious at a relatively early age and
become so deeply ingrained that both their friends and family members have a
difficulty distinguishing the disorder from the person (Neufeld, 1992).
1. ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER – The person seems to lack any
conscience or sense of social responsibility as well as feeling for other
people. Some of these sociopaths, may seem on the outside to be quiet
charming, candid, and generous, though in truth they are opposite. They
take advantage of others without showing any trace of guilt and have no
affection for anyone.
2. BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER – often impulsive, unpredictable,
and often get upset easily. They get uncontrollably angry for little reason;
may quickly shift in their mood.
3. PARANOID PERSONALITY DISORDER – unable to get rid of their constant
suspicions and mistrust of other people, even when facts evidently point out
the truth. Worse, they may have become more suspicious of people who try
to reason out with them. They are always on guard and worried about the
other’s hidden motives and expect at any moment that they will be tricked.
4. SCHIZOID AND SCHIZOTYPAL PERSONALITY DISORDERS – Both
involve personality disturbances which have qualities that resembles
schizophrenia but do not takes on its psychotic form.
Schizoid personality disorder – It is marked by an indifference to social
and sexual relationships and a very narrow range of emotional experience and
expression. People who manifest this disorder do not have the ability to close
social relationships or even to feel any warmth toward others are shy and
withdrawn – a true “loner”, humorless and aloof.
Schizotypal personality disorder – people look peculiar and even bizarre in
their way of relating others, their way of thinking, their way of acting and even
their way of dressing. Strangeness in their ideas may include magical thinking
and beliefs in certain forms of psychic phenomena as clairvoyance or telepathy.
They generally experience illusions and their speech, though coherent ma
appear strange to others.
5. HISTRIONIC AND NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDERS – involve
excessive display of emotions and egocentricity.
Histrionic personality disorder – highly excitable, and often to react on
gigantic display of shallow and non-genuine emotions.
Narcissistic personality disorder – often quite charming and attractive
and pre-occupied with appearance, but once you know them, they are easy to
dislike. They have inflated sense of self-importance and claim perfection. They
fell entitled to everything and end up using people for their own purpose,
including sex. They crave constant attention and admiration because of their
desperate attempts to compensate for feelings of emptiness and
worthlessness lurking beneath the surface.
6. AVOIDANT AND DEPENDENT PERSONALITY DISORDER – locate on the
extreme ends of spectrum on attitude towards relationship with others.
Avoidant personality disorder – characterized by extreme sensitivity to
possible rejection as well as innocent remarks which are interpreted by them
as forms of criticism avoidance of close relationships unless there is certainty
of acceptance and approval, fear of saying something embarrassing, feelings
of inferiority and personal imperfections, and longing for affection.
Dependent personality disorder – are strongly drawn to others. They are
inclined to depend on others at all costs, even if the latter are mean and
abusive. They lack self-confidence and initiative.
7. OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE AND PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE DISORDER –
involving conflict over the matter of control.
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder – constantly feel immobilized
by decisions because they are afraid of making mistakes. They tend to be
strongly perfectionistic in that they are so absorbed in unimportant details as
to be unable to see “the big picture” and inflexible.
Passive-aggressive personality disorder – demonstrate resentment
toward others, but only indirectly, through such unsavory techniques as
procrastination, stubbornness, and intentional inefficiency. They lack
confidence in themselves and embrace a pessimistic attitude.
8. CONTROVERISIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER PATTERNS – when DSM is
being revised in the mid-1980’s, a great deal of debate centered on the
possible inclusion of two personality disorder – sadistic personality disorder
and self-defeating personality disorder.
Sadistic personality disorder – marked by acting toward others in cruel
and demeaning ways, physically, psychologically or both. People with this
disorder may be physically violent, abusive and apt to humiliate others.
Self-defeating personality disorder – people act in ways that lead them
to belittle or underestimate themselves, be deprived of gratification or
pleasure, and rather experience pleasure suffer form pain. Through
unfortunate life choices that they make, they experience disappointment,
failure or abuse in the process.
• ANXIETY DISORDERS
Anxiety is a common dimension of day-to-day human experiences.
Abnormal behavior is a result of failure to cope with anxiety. Anxiety disorders
are marked by experience of physiological arousal, apprehension or feeling
dread, hyper vigilance, avoidance, and sometimes, a specific fear or phobia.
a. Panic Disorders – they experience frequent and recurrent sensations of
fear and physical discomfort or when their tension is converted into a flood
of terror.
b. Phobic Disorders – Phobias are more likely to affect adolescents and
young adults than do other people and among females than among males.
c. Social Phobia – Often associated with drug or alcohol abuse, it applies to
condition in which the person feels afraid of apprehensive being observed
by others, thus acting in ways they are humiliating or embarrassing.
d. Generalized Anxiety Disorder – victims have a number of worries that spread
to various spheres of their life, rather than being focused on one specific fear.
Freud called the condition “free-floating” anxiety.
e. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – the individuals develop obsessions –
thoughts that keep cropping up persistently and in disturbing fashion, and
compulsions – irresistible urges to perform some act over and over again.
These thoughts and behaviors are unrealistic and often take a ritualistic form,
such as washing of hands or rather, cleansing behaviors.
f. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – Some people are not lucky enough to
endure traumatic stresses that lie outside the range of usual human
experience. They include victims not only of tragedies or natural disasters, but
also of shocking stressful experience that human beings themselves devise –
rape, assault and kidnapping, to mention a few. Flashbacks, nightmares and
intrusive thoughts that may alternate with attempts of the person to deny that
the event really took place, are among the aftereffects of the traumatic event.
• SOMATOFORM AND DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS
Both entail the expression of conflict through radical, and at times,
extremely unusual, disturbances in behavior, with symptoms that are quite
difficult to explain (Halgin and Whitbourne, 1994).
Somatoform Disorders – involve the expression of psychological conflict
in physical symptoms for which no medical origins could be found. When
brought to neurophysiological testing, victims of this disorder may not
produce abnormal responses since the symptoms do not match with those of
any known physical disorder.
1. Conversion Disorder – individuals show motor and sensory disturbances
as well as stimulate or complicated physical illness, with a curious lack of
distress over their apparent physical problems, called la belle indifference
(the “beautiful” lack of concern).
2. Somatization Disorder – originally called Biquet’s Syndrome, has the
same symptoms as the conversion disorder, except that here, there are
multiple are recurrent bodily symptoms, with seemingly exaggerated
physical complaints.
3. Pain Disorder – involves primarily the complaint of the pain which has a
psychological component and a medical cause as well.
4. Body Dysmorphic Disorder – People with this have an undue concern
about physical appearance of a part of their body, almost to the point of
being delusional. Consequently, the disorder may lead to social isolation,
work problems, unnecessary cosmetic surgery, and in extremely severe
cases, depression, and suicide.
5. Hypochondriasis – have a belief or fear that they have serious disease,
even if they are merely experiencing normal bodily reactions. May be
regarded as a form of depression, a mechanism for people who are
expressing psychological concerns to seek help for medical problems.
 Malingering - involves deliberate fabrication of symptoms of physical
illness for some hidden or ulterior motive.
Factitious Disorder – similar to malingering, except that its symptoms
may be physical, psychological, or both, and the feigning of the symptoms or
disorders centers of an inner need to maintain a sick role.
An extreme form of factitious disorder is called Munchausen’s
Syndrome, named after Baron von Munchausen. The syndrome is used to
described a condition in which an individual may go beyond merely
complaining about physical distress an inflict self-injury to look “ill”.
 Dissociative Disorders – involve expressing indirectly
psychological conflict through the dissociation, or separation, of
part of the person’s personality, memory, or both.

1. Dissociative Identity Disorder – also multiple personality disorder,

characterized by development of more than one self or personality. In
contrast to the core personality, which is called the host, these
personalities are called the alters. Each alter is often a consistent and
enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to and thinking about the self and
the environment. The transition from one alter to another is usually abrupt
or sudden and triggered by psychosocial stress or some stimulus with a
prominent idiosyncratic worth or value.
2. Other Dissociative Disorder
a. Dissociative Amnesia – Sometimes referred to as psychogenic amnesia, a form of
memory loss due to psychological causes, specially traumatic of stressful life
circumstances. The person develops inability to remember important personal
details and experiences.
Has four forms.
• Localized amnesia – the person forgets all events that took place during a specified
time interval, usually following a disturbing event say a fire or natural calamity.
• Selective amnesia – the person demonstrate the inability to recall some, but not all
details of events that have taken place during a given period of time.
• Generalized amnesia – the person hardly remembers almost anything about his
past life.
• Continuous amnesia – a person cannot recall past events from a particular date, up
to and including present time.
b. Dissociative Fugue – the person enters an altered state of consciousness
and reverts to a behavior that he fails to remember at a later point. He
cannot recall his past history or identity and he may assume a new one. A
fugue is often rare and passes quickly and may be due to personal crises,
extreme stresses or psychologically dangerous situation.
c. Depersonalization Disorder – characterized by feeling “unreal”, usually
involves alteration or changes of mind-body perception, which may range
from being removed from one’s experiences to the feeling that one has
gotten out his body.
• SEXUAL DISORDERS
Sexual disorders constitute behaviors in which there are problems
related to sexual aim or object, sexual performance, or sexual identity or
orientation, which cause harm to other people or cause the individual to
experience some form of distress (Kleinmuntz, 1990).
1. PARAPHILIAS– recurrent, intense sexual urges and sexually arousing
fantasies focused on inanimate objects, on the suffering or humiliation of
oneself or of one’s partner, on children, or on other non consenting
individuals.
a. Exhibitionism – the person has intense sexual urges and arousing
fantasies involving the deliberated exposure of genitals to strangers or to
unsuspecting victims usually women and children.
b. Fetishism – the person has a strong, recurrent sexual attraction to any
object and may derive sexual pleasure from viewing, touching or holding,
etc.
a. Partialism – variant of fetishism, and involves being obsessed with body parts.
b. Pathological Sadism – extreme form of fetishism. The individual does not only derive
sexual satisfaction from having sexual contact with or touching his victims, but
likewise to mutilate the victim’s body or cut it into pieces (Kleinmuntz, 1990).
c. Frotteurism – involves recurrent, intense sexual urges and sexually
arousing fantasies by rubbing against or fondling other person.
d. Pedophilia – an adult has sexual urges directed upon prepubescent or
pubescent children.
VARITIES OF PEDOPHILES :
SITUATIONAL MOLESTERS, PREFERENCE MOLESTERS AND CHIL RAPISTS.
e. Sexual Masochism and Sexual Sadism – Sexual masochism involves deriving
sexual pleasure from receiving painful stimulation applied to one’s body, either
alone or with a partner. Sexual sadism is the opposite and involves deriving sexual
pleasure from activities or urges to inflict pain on another person. The term
sadomasochism applies to those who derive sexual satisfaction from both inflicting
and receiving pain.
f. Transvestic Fetishism – found only in males, also called cross-dressing,
characterized by uncontrollable craving of a man to wear female apparel in order to
achieve sexual gratification. Related to this is autogynephilia, whereby a man
obtains sexual excitement at the thought or images of his having female anatomy
or biological characteristics such as, menstruation, childbirth or breast-feeding
(Halgin and Whitbourne, 1994).
g. Voyeurism – the person has a compulsion to derive sexual satisfaction from
watching pornographic films, reading pornographic literature, or observing nudity
or undressing of others, especially in striptease acts. Peeping involves more risk, in
that the unsuspecting person undressing or indulging in sexual activity is unaware
of being watched.
h. Bestiality – the individual achieves sexual pleasure from having sex with
beasts or animals, such as cows, carabaos, goats, or camels.
i. Necrophilia – the individual usually a male, derives sexual gratification
from having sex with a corpse or a dead person.
j. Rape – sexual relations forced by physical or mental means. When the
victim is minor, it is called statutory rape.
k. Incest –considered a taboo in virtually all societies, this involves having
sexual relations between or among members of the same clan or family.
l. Prostitution – involves sexual relations involving money.
2. GENDER IDENTTY DISORDERS – refers to the individual’s perception of
himself as a male or female. One’s gender may or may not match his
assigned or biological sex as if it appears on his birth certificate. Meanwhile,
sexual orientation implies the degree to which a person is attracted
erotically to members of opposite or same sex (Halgin and Whitbourne,
1994). There is a discrepancy so the person feels inclined to act or dress like
he opposite sex member. Common term used is transexualism.
3. SEXUAL DYSFUNCTIONS – they include behaviors that cannot be
regarded as deviant and do not involve victimization or harm. This cover
aberrations or abnormalities in the sexual responsiveness and sexual
reactions of an individual.
a. Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder – the individual has a chronically low
interest level in sexual activity. He does not seek out actual sex relationships,
imagine having them or has no wish for a more active sex life.
b. Sexual Aversion Disorder – the individual being interested in sex and enjoying
sexual fantasies but being repulsed by the act of intercourse or related sexual
activities.
c. Female Sexual Arousal Disorder – a woman with this disorder experiences
recurrent inability to attain or maintain the normal lubrication response during
the arousal phase of sexual activity, or finds it difficult to feel sexual excitement
or pleasure during sex despite the presence of the desire for sexual activity.
d. Male Erectile Disorder –involves persistent partial or complete failure to achieve
or maintain an erection despite the presence of sexual interest, during sexual
activity or a recurrent lack of personal sense of sexual excitement and pleasure
during sex. Common term for this is impotence, but no longer used because it is
objectionable and inappropriate. It has two types, the primary and secondary.
e. Female Orgasmic Disorder – Also called anorgasmia or inhibited orgasm, is
characterized by the inability to orgasm, either in all forms of sexual activity
or while having intercourse. Frigidity was the label formerly attached to this
type of sexual dysfunction.
f. Male orgasmic Dysfunction – inhibited male orgasm, involves a specific
difficulty either generalized or situational, in the orgasmic phase of sexual
activity. In generalized orgasmic disorder, the male finds it impossible to
reach his orgasm in any sex situation while in specialized orgasmic disorder,
he has difficulty in certain sex situations but not during masturbation.
g. Premature Ejaculation – the man reaches orgasm in a sexual activity even
before he wishes to, or prior to actual penetration.
h. Sexual Pain Disorders – involve the experience of pain during coitus or
sexual intercourse and may either be dyspareunia, the recurrent genital pain,
before, during or after sex or vaginismus, which involves persistent
involuntary and sudden shutting tight of the vagina.
• MOOD DISORDERS
All of us know from our experiences that events can alter or modify our mood.
Even minor cases can cloud the way we feel. The predominant feature of mood
disorders is disturbance in a person’s emotional state or mood (Kagan et al. 1994).
Mood disorder are of two types : depressive and bipolar.
1. Depressive Disorders – include major depression and dysthymia, which are
more evident in women than men.
a. Major depression – involve acute, but time-limited episodes of depression. It is
marked by depressive episodes marked by somatic symptoms such as
listlessness, psychomotor agitation or retardation, appetite disturbances and
disruption of sleeping patterns. It has two major variants.
1. Melancholic depression – lose interest in most of their activities.
2. Seasonal depression – develop depressive symptoms at the same time each
year, usually for a month or two, and then are able to return to normal
functioning.
b. Dysthymia – people suffer from same kind of symptoms as those find in
major depression, except that they do not experience as many symptoms
and the symptoms are not as severe. Some of them may have additional
substance abuse disorder.
2. Disorders with Alternations in Mood – has two forms which alterations in
mood are the main feature.
3. Bipolar Disorder - involves a strong and very disruptive experience of
heightened mood, called mania or manic episode. A manic have thoughts
that are seemingly out of control, and may be driven to irrational behaviors.
His euphoria may turn into extreme irritability more so if other people
frustrate him.
4. Cyclothymia – people experience chronic vascillations in mood that may
range from dysphoria to hypomania, with milder symptoms of mania. They
experience recurrent or persistent mood shifts, but not as intense as those
in bipolar disorder.
• SCHIZOPHRENIC AND RELATED PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS
Although such behaviors can be associated with certain conditions, in essence they are
indicative of a form of psychosis called schizophrenia, a disorder that as first identified as a
disease by French physician Benedict Morel and was systematically defined by German
psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin. It was initially named dementia praecox since it was thought to
be a degeneration of the brain (dementia) that started at a relatively young age (praecox)
and ultimately led to the disintegration or splitting of the entire personality (Kleinmuntz,
1992). It was Eugene Bleuler who coined the word schizophrenia to refer to what he
considered as the core of the disorder – the splitting of normal psychological functions of
perceptions, thoughts, emotions and behaviors (Nietzel, 1991).
1. Schizophrenia – The most devastating of all mental disorders, with a broad range of
symptoms that has four fundamental features, called the Bleuler’s A’s :
Association – disorders of thoughts
Affect – disorders of the experience and expression of emotions
Ambivalence – the inability to make or follow through on decisions
Autism – tendency to maintain an idiosyncratic style of egocentric thought and behavior.
 THREE PHASES OF SCHIZOPHRENIA
• Prodromal Phase – the individual shows progressive deterioration in social
and interpersonal functioning during this period.
• Active Phase – Shows signs of disturbances which usually does not appear
without warning signs.
• Residual Phase – the individual continues to manifest indication of
disturbance, such as delusions or peculiar speech that are more intense and
disruptive.
 SEVERAL TYPES OF SCHIZOPHRENIA
a. Catatonic Schizophrenia – prominent symptom is bizarre or unusual bodily
movements, ranging fro immobility and stupor to frenetic or wild, stereotyped
movements of the body.
b. Disorganized Schizophrenia – combination of symptoms that include
incoherent speech, loose thought associations, inappropriate affect, and grossly
disorganized behavior.
c. Paranoid Schizophrenia – marked by bizarre or highly strange delusions or
auditory hallucinations of a threatening, coercive, or injurious (persecutory)
nature, without disorganize speech.
d. Undifferentiated Schizophrenia – exists when the symptom picture of
schizophrenia is mixed. The person shows a complex of schizophrenia
symptoms.
e. Residual Schizophrenia – people who have been previously diagnosed with
schizophrenia and no longer have prominent psychotic symptoms but still
manifest some lingering signs of the disorder.
2. Other Psychotic Disorders – comprised of schizophrenia-like disorders
that share three common features :all are forms of schizophrenia that
represent a serious break with reality, all of them are not thought of to be
caused by disorder of cognitive impairment, and disturbance in mood is an
uncommon symptom.
a. Brief Psychotic Disorder – arises when people experience overwhelming
stress. This is characterized by a sudden onset of psychotic symptoms that
are short-lived.
b. Schizophreniform Disorder – the term schizophreniform implies a
disorder that takes the form of schizophrenia but is somehow different.
c. Schizoaffective Disorder – individuals have a diagnosis of symptoms that
are both schizophrenic and affective in nature and which cannot be clearly
separated.
d. Delusional Disorder – the single and most striking psychotic symptom of this
group of disorders is delusional thinking. It has five subtypes :
1. Erotomania – the psychotic individual has the irrational belief that is a very
prominent person is in love with him.
2. Grandiose Delusional Disorder – he considers himself to be a very important
person or a God.
3. Jealous Delusional Disorder – he believes his partner is being unfaithful to
him.
4. Persecutory Delusional Disorder – he perceives himself as being persecuted
or being an object of an attack or harm.
5. Somatic Delusional Disorder – he believes he has some dreaded disease,
such as AIDS, or that he is dying.
e. Shared Psychotic Disorder – this pertains to a group of disorders I which one
or more people develop a delusional system due to close relationship with a
psychotic, delusional person.
• DEVELOPMENT – RELATED DISORDERS
With the emergence of a field called developmental psychopathology, the basic
processes that underlie both normal and abnormal development have been uncovered and
developmental deviations and their causes have been identified; thus, tremendously
enhancing our knowledge about the dynamics of deviant development in general, and
psychopathology in particular (Bee, 1995).
1. INTELLECTUALLY ATYPICAL DEVELOPMENT-RELATED DISORDERS
A. Development Disability – According to the American Association on Mental
Deficiency (AAMD), development disability pertains to a significantly sub-average
general functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior, and
manifested during the developmental period. (Grosman, 1983)they fall under four
categories:
a. Mildly developmental disabled – have an intelligence quotient (IQ) that falls between
50 or 55 to 70. Their social and communication skills can be developed. They are
minimally retarded in terms of sensory-motor functions. They can be expected to
acquire basic academic skills that may reach the level of a sixth grade or seventh
grader. Also referred to as educable developmentally disabled.
b. Moderately developmentally disabled – those with IQs ranging from 35 or
40 to 50 or 55. They can talk or learn to communicate and have poor social
awareness but fair motor skills. Though they are not expected to acquire
the basic academic skills, they are able to acquire some minimal social and
occupational skills, when given long-term, appropriate training. They are
not likely to progress beyond second-grade level.
c. Severely developmentally disabled – those with IQs ranging between 20
or 25 to 35 or 40. They have poor motor development and impaired
language skills.
d. Profoundly developmentally disabled – have an IQ falling 20 or 25
between to 35 or 40. They are grossly retarded and manifest minimal
capacity in functioning in sensory-motor areas.
B. Learning Disabilities – disorders in the one or more of the basic
psychological processes involved the understanding or using a spoken or
written language that may be shown in an imperfect ability to listen, think,
speak, write, read, spell or do mathematical calculations. An individual is
considered learning disabled when he fails to achieve at a level
commensurate with his age or ability level in one or more of the following
despite being provided with appropriate learning experiences :oral
expression, comprehension, written expression, basic reading skill, reading
comprehension, mathematics calculation, or mathematics reasoning.
2. PHYSICALLY ATYPICAL DEVELOPMENT-RELATED DISORDERS
a. Autism – Involves a marked impairment in a person’s inability to
communicate and to relate emotionally to others. Characterized by lack of
social responsiveness and difficulty in forming emotional bonds with family
members as well as with other children. They communicate using very
peculiar speech or unusual speech, which in time may be inappropriately
loud, monotonous or high-pitched.
Autistic savant syndrome – called idiot savant. The person possesses,
besides a severe handicap, some kind of extraordinary skills, like the unusual
ability to perform extremely complicated numerical operations, an
exceptional musical ability, or an artistic prowess.
b. Visual Impairment – implies a visual problem requiring specific
modifications or adjustments in the student’s educational programs. Such
modifications entail special adjustments in the written and the visual
materials or in the instructional environment itself (Reynolds and Birch,
1992). There is blindness when the vision is measured to be 20/200 or less
in the better eye correction, or when the visual field is significantly less
than what is considered to be normal.
c. Auditory Impairment – Sensory deprivation also exists in terms of the
reception to sounds from the environment. Most hearing impaired people
demonstrate some limited functioning of their auditory system and it is
termed hearing impairment or partial hearing. The quality of voice of a
hearing impaired people was labored or difficult to comprehend. These
language development problems exist simply because the person is unable
to hear himself or others. Reading problems go hand in hand with severe
hearing loss.
d. Speech and Language Disorders – imply speech behaviors which are
sufficiently deviant from normal or accepted speaking patterns that they
attract attention, interfere with communication, and adversely affect
communication for either the speaker or listener (Gelfand, Johnson and
Drew, 1992). Included under this heading are stuttering, disarticulation
and voice disorders.
This occurs when individuals do not progress systematically and
sequentially in any aspect of rule-governed and purposive linguistic
behaviors. (Lucas, 1990) this group of disorders include receptive language
disorders, expressive language disorder and aphasia.
3. DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR DISORDER
a. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder – This disorder has two components :
inattention and hyperactive-compulsive components. Inattention implies
carelessness with their work, forgetfulness in their daily activities, and other
attentional problems. Hyperactivity is shown in fidgeting, restlessness, running
about inappropriately, experiencing difficulty in playing quietly and talking
excessively, while impulsiveness, through blurting out answers, failure to wait for
their turn, and interruption or intrusion on others. This occurs before the age of
seven.
b. Conduct Disorder – the precursor in childhood of anti-social personality disorder,
implies violation of the rights of others and norms or laws of the society. It is
manifested in forms of delinquency. It begins before puberty.
c. Oppositional Defiant Disorder – includes prominent rebellious kinds of behavior
in children or adolescents that lasts for more than six months and cause significant
problems in family or school. Instead of seeing them the cause of the problems,
they put the blame to circumstances or on other people. Becomes evident
between 8 and 12.
• SUBSTANCE-RELATED DISORDERS
The use of alcohol and drugs itself cannot be viewed as a psychological disorder.
The use of these substances which considerably affect the nervous system is
considered abnormal when its use becomes so frequent and heavy that its users can no
longer function normally. Substance abuse involves the use of psychoactive substances
(a chemical that can be smoked, injected, drunk, inhaled or swallowed in pill form)that
can alter or change a person’s behavior and entails significant risks.
Intoxication implies experiencing altered behaviors resulting from the accumulation
in the body of a psychoactive substance. Withdrawal pertains to a physical or
psychological reaction to the ingestion of the psychoactive substance. Tolerance is
characterized by an individual needing larger doses or amounts of a psychoactive
substance to feel its desired effects. Dependence entails a psychological and often
physical need for a psychoactive substance. (Halgin and Whitbourne, 1994)
Addiction involves an overpowering desire or need (compulsion) to continue taking
the psychoactive substance and to obtain it by any means as well as to increase its
dose. Habituation involves a desire but not a compulsion, to continue taking the drug
for improved sense of well-being it produces, with little or no tendency to increasing
the dose. (Sevilla, et al. 1997)
• Two main categories :
1. Alcoholism – people who crave for alcohol to get rid of feelings are in danger
of becoming victims of alcoholism, a strong dependence on alcohol
accentuated by loss of control over the act of drinking. Despite the physical
and psychological problems, alcoholics may continue to drink.
2. Drug Addiction – pertains to the periodic or chronic intoxication produced by
the repeated consumption of a natural or synthetic drug.
a. Stimulants – Substances that have an activating effect on the central nervous
system, drugs in this category that are associated with psychological
disorders are : Amphetamines called “beanie”, “speed” or “uppers” are
stimulants causing a vast range of psychological effects. Cocaine also called
“coke”, “gold dust” and “snow”, used to be marketed as a cure for everything,
from fatigue to malaria, its stimulating effect are shorter but more intense.
Caffeine is an important ingredient in many prescription as well as
nonprescription medications. It activates the sympathetic nervous system and
can bring out slight improvement in mood, alertness and clarity of thought.
b. Marijuana – Also called “pot”, “grass” and “weed”, this is considered the
most widely used illegal drug in the country. The most common way to
take it is by smoking but it can also be eaten and taken intravenously. It can
alter perceptions of environment and bodily sensations.
c. Hallucinogens – Also called psychedelic drugs, cause distortions in
perceptual experiences in the form of illusions or hallucinations that are
usually visual. LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) also called “acid”, “blue
dots” and “cube”, can cause dizziness, weakness and psychological
changes that can lead to euphoria and hallucinations.
d. Opioids – Narcotics, category of drugs that include derivatives of opium
poppy. They experience pleasurable physical sensations and euphoria.
Addiction to heroine may result to committing of crime.
e. Sedative-Hypnotic and Anxiety Drugs – “downers”, include a broad range of
substances that both induce relaxation, sleep, tranquility and decrease
awareness of the environment. Sedative implies the calming effects of these
drugs on the nervous system, and hypnotic to their sleep-inducing qualities.
1. Barbiturate-Sedative Hypnotic Drugs – “blue heavens”, “blue devils ”,
“blue angels”, “goofball”, and “rainbows”, used medically as anesthetics,
anticonvulsants and sleep-inducers. The most frequently abused barbiturates
are those that have effects persisting for several hours of time.
2. Nonbarbiturate-Sedative Hypnotic Drugs – use of methaqualone is believe
to have less “knock out” effect than barbiturates and could lead to experience
of total disassociation from physical and mental selves and loss of inhibitions.
3. Antianxiety Drugs – specifically used to treat anxiety despite their medical
use. Usually bring about feelings of calm and relaxation but when used
excessively may lead to withdrawal symptoms.
• DISORDERS OF SELF-CONTROL
When people act on certain impulses that involve potentially harmful behavior
which they cannot resist, they are said to demonstrate impulse control disorder. This
has three main features : (1)inability to stop from acting on impulses that are harmful
to themselves or to others, (2) experience of tension and anxiety that can only be
relieved by following through their impulse, and (3) experience of a sense of pleasure
or gratification upon acting on their impulse.
A. Impulse-Control Disorders
1. Kleptomania – The individual does not take things on a whim or out of economic
necessity, but because he is driven by persistent urge to steal.
2. Pathological Gambling – an urge in the individual to gamble that is much more
stronger than a typical person, and often ending up spending his entire life
pursuing big wins.
3. Pyromania – people with this disorder are fascinated with fire and manifest a
compulsive and dangerous urge or intense desire to deliberately prepare, set and
watch fires.
4. Sexual Impulsivity – Compulsive sexuality or sexual addiction,
characterized by inability to control sexual behavior, usually by engaging
frequent and indiscriminate sexual activity. The main feature of this is lack
of control over sexual impulses.
5. Trichotillomania – The strong urge to pull one’s hair characterized this
disorder. They feel incapable of resisting the urge to pull hair even it results
to bald patches and lost of hair. Such disorder occurs most often among
females, and originates in childhood and adolescence.
6. Intermittent Explosive Behavior – Involves the inability to control
impulses to lash out in extreme anger, that often involves physically or
verbally aggressive behavior, such disorder is common among men.
B. Eating Disorders
1. Anorexia Nervosa – An individual wishes to be extremely thin, developing
an intense fear of becoming fat that leads him to diet, to the point of
emaciation. The binge/pursing type overeats and then forces himself to
purge, or rid himself of whatever he has ingested.
2. Bulimia Nervosa – The person alternates between the extremes of taking
in large amounts of food in a short period of time, and then compensating
for the added calories by vomiting or by using laxatives. The non-purging
type may resort to fasting or excessive, rigid physical exercises.
 DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS
DISORDER SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS PREDILECTION
AGE SEX DURATION
DISRUPTIVE • Violate : Begins before Greater than Childhood to
BEHAVIOR Right of others puberty boys/males adolescence
DISORDERS Society’s norms than
Instructional policies girls/females
Conduct Disorder Rules and regulations
• May act alone or in • Delinquency
a group Stealing
• Precursor to Running away
antisocial society Lying
Physical cruelty
Sexual assault
Breaking and entering
Fire-setting
• When caught
Deny guilt
Shift blame to others
Lack remorse
DISORDER SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS PREDILECTION
AGE SEX DURATION
Abuse drugs/ alcohol
Rape
• Aggression to people
and animals
Bullies, threatens, or
intimidate
Initiates physical fights
Uses weapon causing
serious physical harm
Physically cruel
Has stolen while
confronting a victim
Forces someone into sexual
activity