Abnormal Behavior What Essentially Qualifies as Abnormal

Abnormal Behavior

What essentially qualifies as "abnormal behavior" is not always as cut and dry as many believe. For example, the medical model defines abnormal behavior in terms as the result of some physical problem (cellular derangement, chemical imbalance, or genetic issue) that causes the behavior; however, there are no physical markers for the majority of the diagnoses in the DSM-IV (Szasz, 2008). The legal definition of insanity, which was based on psychiatric definitions, is that abnormal behavior occurs when the individual is unable to distinguish between right and wrong; however this definition is far too extreme to be practical (Porter, 2002). For instance most rapists realize that their behavior is wrong by societal standards amd yet rape is certainly considered by most as abnormal.

The four commonly held criteria for normal vs. abnormal behavior include: (1) Statistical infrequency model, which states that abnormal behavior that falls on either extreme end of a normal distribution. The problem here is that someone with an extremely high IQ or some other trait would be defined abnormal by this criterion. (2) The disability or dysfunction model states the behavior somehow results in an alternation of what would be considered "normal" functioning in some area. This is really a catch 22 definition because it relies on the designation of "normal" behavior in its definition, which is akin to using the word in its definition. What is "normal" functioning?" is essentially the same question as "what is abnormal functioning?" (3) Personal distress notions of abnormality claim that the behavior leads to suffering or misery in the person. The issue here is that many obvious features of certain abnormal behaviors such as personality disorders or drug abuse often do not lead to personal distress in the individual affected by them. (4) Violation of social norms related to the notion that the behavior is a departure from the accepted norms in the person's reference or peer group. There are several issues here: cultural contexts can be hard to assess; they change frequently (look at all the piercings and tattoos young people sport today that 10 years ago would have been considered extreme); some specific cultural values such as certain religious behaviors, cruelty to animals, or certain fertility rites (such as the Samoan right of the father to break in the daughter sexually) would not be tolerated in the overall mainstream society regardless of their specific cultural values; and certain culturally accepted behaviors may reflect misunderstandings of serious medical conditions such as epilepsy or schizophrenia. Therefore any one of these four definitions alone would be lacking as a qualifier of what constitutes "abnormal behavior" but used together they can provide useful guidelines as to what qualifies as abnormal. This is essentially the approach of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) when developing the diagnostic criteria for the DSM series (APA, 2000).