Although there is not a single characteristic that could qualify a person as normal, there are several elements associated with abnormality. Identification of abnormality assists in further treatment of people with mental disorder. Physical health is easily understood due to gross and laboratory diagnosis. However, mental illness is different because it involves disturbances in behavior, thought, and feelings. It is a disorder of function that does not translate to a precise physical impairment thus making it difficult to define. Medical and psychological conditions share similar characteristics. However, the two differ in several fundamental ways. Durand and Barlow (2012) asserted that the first difficulty in assessing abnormal or mental disorders is in the area of diagnosis. Unlike conventional diseases like diabetes and cancer, there is no standard test for a psychological disorder. Furthermore, the brain structure of the abnormal people often looks the same as that of the normal ones.
Other than lacking designated biological diagnoses, mental disorders show specific behavioral characteristics that could also be observed in the mentally healthy people. Behavioral and emotional states usually work in a continuum usually alternating between normal, accepted, deviant, unaccepted, or abnormal. Different behaviors associated with the abnormal individuals can be observed in the normal people. For instance, washing an individual's hand is regarded as normal behavior. However, among the mentally ill people, washing hands, albeit extensively, can be done by people with an obsessive-compulsive disorder (Sue et al. 2015). Another significant difficulty in determining an abnormality in mental health is that the behavior should not only be unusual but also proven to be maladaptive, which is defined as the extent to which a condition causes distress. For instance, the fearing a chicken will not only be regarded as a mental problem unless it has a negative impact on an individual's life.
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Every society and culture has their perception regarding what qualifies as normal or abnormal behavior and also what causes it. Most people associate abnormality to religious beliefs as illustrated in the bible where God in the book of Samuel sent King Saul an evil spirit as a result of his defiant actions (Nolen-Hoeksema, & Rector, 2015). The ancient Hindu tradition associates the mental disorders to witchcraft and sorcery. In the middle ages, people believed that mental illnesses came as a result of infection with evil spirits. As such, remedies could only be achieved through purges, bloodletting, and trepanation amongst others. However, as people moved towards the 16 th century onwards, people became increasingly aware of the need to treat mental illnesses as medical issues. As such, more hospitals were put up in a bid to solve these psychological disorders. Most important to note is that today, psychologists have found and develop certain criteria that assist them in determining the likelihood that a behavior qualifies as a psychological disorder.
Most of the criteria developed by these psychologists are documented in what is known as the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM). First, the DSM arranges the psychological disorders into five axes helpful in identifying a mental disorder. Therefore, important to note is that the DSM does not specify any exact symptom but instead applies categories and patients' symptoms that are similar to the outlined description. The first axis assesses the presence of a clinical syndrome such as anxiety and mood disorders. The second axis questions whether mental retardation is present in a patient. Thirdly, the axis also analyzes the occurrence of a general medical condition such as diabetes or cancer. The fourth axis assesses the presence of any an environmental or social problems such as divorce, homelessness, and stressors among others. Lastly, the fifth axis utilizes global assessment in analyzing an individual’s functioning (“American Psychiatric Association,” 2013). Therefore, the DSM criteria provide principles and methods of identifying mental disorders.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5®) . American Psychiatric Pub.
Durand, V. M., & Barlow, D. H. (2012). Essentials of abnormal psychology . Cengage Learning.
Nolen-Hoeksema, S., & Rector, N. A. (2015). Abnormal psychology . Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Sue, D., Sue, D. W., Sue, S., & Sue, D. M. (2015). Understanding abnormal behavior . Cengage Learning.
