How do we define a 'mental abnormality'?

Are mental abnormalities chiefly defined by the extreme deviation from the majority of shared behaviours, traits, structure, emotions? etc. and is it still considered an abnormality if the majority of the population have share these?

Here is the first video that came to my mind:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3JQ8OVHVWA it explains it rather well.

Noun 1. mental abnormality - any abnormality of mental function
organic brain syndrome - mental abnormality resulting from disturbance of the structure or function of the brain
abnormalcy, abnormality - an abnormal physical condition resulting from defective genes or developmental deficiencies

One criterion for "abnormality" that may appear to apply in the case of abnormal behavior is statistical infrequency. This has an obvious flaw — the extremely intelligent, are just as abnormal as their opposites. Therefore, individual abnormal behaviors are considered to be statistically unusual as well as undesirable. The presence of some form of abnormal behavior is not unusual. About one quarter of people in the United States, for example, are believed to meet criteria for a mental disorder in any given year 1. Mental disorders, by definition, involve unusual or statistically abnormal behaviors.

Are you happy. No..@@ Cant get happy: Then your abnormal
Can I excite and get women. have relationships. No. ABNORMAL
Cant get food for myself
Cant get clothing for myself
Talk to myself and other people that arnt their. all day long, no one is their to pay me for it.
Im doing all of this acting out in the corner of a round room and no one is paying for it.

THIS IS ABNORMALITY

I CANT GET MY NEEDS MET>>>>> Not without help from others. In a society that promotes independent living and breathing. ABNORMALITY

I cant function. I feel like Im being tortured all day long, I want to die. The rest of society has thrown me away because I cant perform like a monkey for them. THIS IS ABNORMALITY...

Cant look like others, sound like others, feel like others, breath like others, play like others, fight like others, frown like others, clown like others. THIS IS ABNORMALITY.

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The simple way to look at this is: I cant even feed myself. If someone didn't show up with food, I would starve to death. In all common sense. regardless of why, in this modern society, this is considered abnormal, regardless of the diagnosis. And one simply has to have help or they die. ITs that simple.

Hi Emyu,

I'm confused about whether your asking what the phrase "mental abnormality" means or whether you are asking what statistical measurement practices are employed to establish what is abnormal. I'm assuming you are asking the latter so I'll try and answer it.

Abnormal, as TruthSpeak explained, occurs at both ends of any statistical curve. For example, an extremely low score on an IQ test is just as abnormal as an extremely high score. Francis Galton is just as abnormal as someone with profound mental retardation.

A problem with some of these measures is that Psychologists don't typically measure positive mental states like happiness, pleasure, contentment or a loving disposition. They measure negative mental states like depression, anxiety, lonliness or other kinds of unpleasantness. So Psychologists end up with alot of data on what the distribution of these mental states are which leads us to commonly associate the use of the word "mental abnormality" with these negative mental states when in fact there is no reason to do so.

Hope that helps and by the way the "Historian of Systems of Thought" and critic of Psychiatry Michel Foucault presented a series of lectures on Abnormality titled "Abnormal" in 1974-75. You might want to check it out if your interested in what a really interesting theorist thought about deviance and abnormality.

Link: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault)

Take care and don't listen to the Scientologists they're after your wallet.

If you believe you are cursed and you are Haitian or Creole, it is not considered a mental abnormality. If you are not from that culture, it is. If you are a darling Catholic girl and see angels, that is not considered a mental abnormality. Instead, you will be revered. If you are not a cute little Catholic girl, you will be considered crazy. If you talk to god out loud you are crazy but if it is silently, you are simply religious.

Hey Parson1,

Parson1 wrote:. We have all had some exposure to mental illness, but do we really understand it or know what it is? Many of our preconceptions are incorrect. A mental illness can be defined as a health condition that changes a person’s thinking, feelings, or behavior (or all three) and that causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning. As with many diseases, mental illness is severe in some cases and mild in others. Individuals who have a mental illness don’t necessarily look like they are sick, especially if their illness is mild.

I don't think you understand the criticims to the medical paradigm in psychiatry. The main criticism is that the medical paradigm takes concepts used in medicine to apply meaningfully in psychology. For example, psychiatrists talk about minds as being "sick" or "healthy" without explaining how exactly a construct like the mind can be sick. Many defenders of the medical paradigm insist that "there exists no reason why the mind cannot be sick or healthy" of course if we subsitute mind for anything else (e.g "there exists no reason why the econonmy cannot be sick or healthy", "there exists no reason why someone's behaviour cannot be sick or healthy", "there exists no reason an argument cannot be sick or healthy") we see how vacuous and incoherent the defense of the medical paradigm is.

There is a rich history of the use of metaphor and analogy in psychology and psychiatry that goes something like this

"the mind is a machine" James Stuart Mill
"the mind is a complex element" Wundt and Titchner
"the mind is like a stream" William James
"the mind is an information processor" Ulric Neisser
"the mind is an indivisble whole" Gestalt Psychologists

So the metaphor that "the mind is sick" or "the mind is healthy" should really be situated here as well.

For more information on the difficulties of using language to signify or represent the mind I really recommend Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations". It's a difficult work but, I don't think you can understand theoretical psychology and psychiatry without it.

Also,

Parson1 wrote: In this module, we will at times discuss mental illness in general terms and at other times, discuss specific mental illnesses. Depression, schizophrenia, and ADHD will be presented in greater detail than other mental illnesses.

Please don't copy and paste text from other websites. The thread is about mental abnormality and how it is defined, measured and conceptualized.

Take care.

emyu93 wrote:Are mental abnormalities chiefly defined by the extreme deviation from the majority of shared behaviours, traits, structure, emotions?

No, it is also defined by who calls the shots (authorities). Usually they are the same or similar to the majority. It depends a lot on life circumstances as well. The authority of a country might be different than the authority of the individual's "inner circle". So you could be in accord to the country's mores but still have trouble with your immediate environment if it differs from the bigger whole. So there is a judgment call to be made about which group to belong to in some degree. It is not black and white.

emyu93 wrote: etc. and is it still considered an abnormality if the majority of the population have share these?

Very unlikely, but not impossible, if the behavior is clearly self-destructive.