1. Your uncle consumes a quart of whiskey per day; he has trouble remembering the names of those around him.
Drinking alcohol in some limit may be considered as normal behavior. However, since drinking quarter of whiskey clearly effects brain and bodily functions, we can say this behavior is abnormal. Possible diagnoses would be substance use disorders. One can be drunk after he or she got divorced, however this is not a sign of mental disorder. However, it is clear that my uncle suffers from every day drinking habit.
Additionally, if my uncle has trouble remembering the names around him, this indicates that there is an abnormality in brain functions related to memory. We may need to know if he remembers the names in normal times and if he has other memory impairments. If so, this may be a sign for some disorder, can be Alzheimer’s disease. We need to know his age. In one of National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's publication Tyas (2008) indicates that heavy alcohol use effects on brain are similar to Alzheimer disease (AD) and alcohol use may be risk factor for AD. However, Tyas (2008) also add that there is no strong evidence about this connection.
In cultural perspective, for instance for Irish people drinking beer until being drunk may be normal however if we see a priest in same behavior it can be considered as abnormal. Environment, occupation, culture and reasons of the behavior, change our definitions of abnormality.
2. Your grandmother believes that part of her body is missing and cries out about this missing part all day long. You show her the part that is missing but she refuses to acknowledge this contradictory information.
This is a certainly abnormal behavior. She has bizarre delusions and accor...
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Since her husband died three months ago, even if her behavior considered to be abnormal we may approach this case as such behavior can be happened to anyone for a short-time period. However, we need to consider it has been 3 months already.
In some cultures, women does not marry in other men after their husband dies. However, talking herself and doesn't dress in clean clothes wouldn’t be normal in any cultures.
Works Cited
Barlow, H. D., Durand, V. M. (2012). Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach. Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. (2000). American Psychiatric Association.
Tyas, S. L. (2008). Alcohol Use and the Risk of Developing Alzheimer's Disease. National Istitute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Retrieved from: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh25-4/299-306.htm
Most alcoholics proceed to a stage where their brains or their bodies have been so harmed by alcohol that the effects persist even when they are not drinking. This stage may be reached...
Here are some facts that are related to Reyna’s story. Cirrhosis is one of the main alcohol effects. Cirrhosis happens when all the healthy cells are damaged and scar tissue replaces the healthy tissue. Dementia is caused lack of nutrients and vitamins. Depending of the stage of alcohol dementia, that is where you can see the different type of symptoms. Alcohol dementia symptoms can vary, people can experience mental confusion, agitation, paranoia, and involuntary eye problems. Weight gain is a big part of alcoholism. Our bodies can’t store calories from alcohol for later, like we would do with food calories. Alcohol makes people depressed, alcohol is a depressant. It’s known that people often drink alcohol when a stressful thing happens in their life. People often use alcohol as a “get away” from reality. Most people don’t know that after a few drink, you start getting depressed. Alcoholism affects not only the person that is getting intoxicated but everyone around them including family, friends, and children. It’s a fact that 4 in 10 child abusers have admitted to be under the influence when abusing a child. Those children that have been a victim of child abuse are most likely having an increased chance of behavioral and physical problems when they get
Zeigler, Donald. "The neurocognitive effects of alcohol on adolescents and college students." Preventive Medicine 40. (2004): 23 – 32. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. .
...abnormal , perhaps in twenty years will be classified as normal. This is the main reason what normal psychology and abnormal psychology differ.
Comer, R. J. (2011). Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology (Sixth ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
When I think of abnormal behavior, the first thing that comes to mind is one of my aunt’s. She committed suicide when I very young, so early 1970’s. As I got older, inevitably stories of her would arise during holiday get togethers. She was married with three children and in her early thirties, residing in Florida, when she walked out and away from her husband and small children. For over a year, no one knew what happened to her, she made no effort to contact anyone. Eventually, the Salvation Army somewhere in Michigan called my grandmother and they sent her home on a bus. She never returned to her husband or children. The doctors diagnosed her as a paranoid schizophrenic. My mother told me that when she was on her medication she was fine, but once she felt “fine”, she would stop her medication. When the medication left her system, she became anxious and afraid. She once chased my grandmother, who was in her late sixties down the driveway with an ax, because she thought her mother was trying to kill her. After several inpatient stays in mental hospitals, she came back home again and she was doing good. She left my grandmother’s one night while everyone was sleeping, made it approximately fifteen miles away to a lake.
The first to advocate alcoholism as a disease was Benjamin Rush (1785-1843), and he even proposed that hospitals should be established to aid in the treatment of this disease (Cox, 1987). Since Rush, there have been many more definitions of alcoholism including the Statistical Abstracts (1979) account that an alcoholic is defined as ?one who is unable consistently to choose whether he shall drink or not, and if he drinks, is unable consistently to choose whether he shall stop or not. ?Alcoholics with complications? are those who have developed bodily or mental disorders through prolonged excessive drinking? (O?Brien & Chafetz, 1982, p.26). Further, Mark Keller of Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcoholism in March of 1960 stated that alcoholism is a ?chronic disease manifested by repeat implicative drinking so as to ca...
Barlow, David H., Vincent Mark. Durand, and Sherry H. Stewart. Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach. Toronto: Nelson Education, 2012. 140-45. Print.
Moreover when we think about adaptive and abnormal behavior we have to ask yourself a questions where is that line that would differentiate the two behaviors. Each individual person comes from different cultures, different households and different religious practices. What others do might not be normal to us or abnormal to us in away, but to them it's a typically adaptive behavior. As I see and think about the abnormal behavior i picture two different categories of it. First category would be a person like a mentioned before in a Brooklyn College campus setting etc. A person who is not harming anyone around them but practicing an abnormal behavior such as walk in to the wedding wearing swimming suit that in my eyes would be consider an abnormal
Barlow, D., Durand, V., & Stewart, S. (2009). Abnormal psychology an integrative apporach. (2nd ed.). United States of America: Wadsworth
The early symptoms include slurred speech, memory impairment, poor coordination unstable moods and inappropriate behavior. A consistency of blackouts and cravings can also be signs of an alcoholic. The psychological aspect of the disease is related to the individual's thoughts and actions. The alcoholic is so focused on obtaining and consuming alcohol no matter what the consequences. They become weary and neglect responsibilities and obligations. Binge drinking is another sign of alcoholism. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, for men that’s five or more drinks in two hours, and for women that’s four or more drinks in two hours (2014). More severely affected people began to make themselves distant from family and friends over time. Also putting yourself in dangerous situations like drinking and driving or mixing with prescription drugs is another sign of alcoholism. Ultimately if drinking begins causing problems in your life, then you have a drinking problem. The serious side effects of alcohol abuse can produce damaging
The cause of alcoholism is a combination of biological, psychological, and cultural factors that may contribute to the development of...
Alcohol has been in the world for many centuries and has become a pain but also somewhat of a solution to society. It can be viewed as something to be a social gathering that brings friends together or it can be taking as destruction to someone. Over the years alcohol has played many roles in the world but it plays an even bigger role in substance abuse. Doctors have made several points that it is okay to have a drink every now and again but people need to realize when one drink has become too many. The ideal of having a drink with friends or going out and having an occasional drink is acceptable; However, is it still acceptable when a person find their selves having a drink first thing in the morning or runs to a drink to solve their people.
Halgin, R. P., & Whitbourne, S. K. (2010). Abnormal psychology: clinical perspectives on psychological disorders (6th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
According to Institute of Alcohol Studies there is more than one kind of relationship involved between alcohol problems and mental health, such as: mental health problems may be a cause of problem drinking and vice versa; there may be a factor in common, in the genes or in the early family environment, which later contributes to both a mental health problems and alcohol probl...