Abnormality

• Statistical infrequency occurs when an individual has a less common characteristics
• Deviation from social norms is concerns behaviour that is different from the accepted standards of behaviours in a community or society
• One strength of statistical infrequency is its usefulness. It is used in clinical practice for diagnosis and assess the severity of an individuals symptoms. For example a diagnosis of intellectual disability disorder requires an IQ of below 70. Another example an assessment tool is the Beck depression inventory (BDI). A score of 30+ indicates severe depression.
• One limitation of statistical infrequency is that characteristics can be positive. For example a person with high IQ won't be considered abnormal. It's not sufficient as the sole basis for defining abnormality.
• One strength of deviation from social norms is its usefulness. It's used in clinical practice. For example, the key defining characteristic of antisocial personality disorder is the failure to conform to culturally acceptable ethical behaviour. It can also be used in the diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder.
• One limitation of deviation from social norms is the variability between social norms in different cultures and even different situations.
• Using deviation from social norms to define someone as abnormal carries the risk of unfair labelling and leaving them open to human right abuses. For example black slaves running away were diagnosed with drapetomania and it was a way to control slaves and avoid debate
• Failure to function adequately occurs when someone is unable to cope with ordinary demands of day to day living.
• Rosehan and Seligman (1989) said that when a person no longer conforms to standard interpersonal rules, experiences severe personal distress, becomes irrational or dangerous to themselves or others determines when someone is not coping.
• Deviation from ideal mental health occurs when someone does not meet a set of criteria for good mental health
• Jahoda (1958) suggested that we are in good mental health if we meet the criteria that we have no distress, rational, perceive ourselves accurately, self actualise, cope with stress, realistic view of the world, good self esteem, lack of guilt, autonomy of thinking and acting for ourselves, work and enjoy leisure.
• One strength of the failure to function is that it represents a sensitive threshold for when people need professional help. So treatment and services can be targeted to those who need them most.
• One limitation of the failure to function is that it's easy to label non standard lifestyle choices as abnormal. For example bereavement, just because they react to difficult circumstances.
• One strength of the deviation from ideal mental health is that it's highly comprehensive. Jahoda's criteria covers most of the reasons why we might seek or be referred for help
• One limitation of the deviation ideal mental health is that some criterias are not equally applicable across a range of cultures. It's more applicable in the context of the US and Europe. The concept of self actualisation would probably be dismissed as self indulgent in most of the world. So it's difficult to apply the concept of ideal mental heath to other countries.