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
The World of Psychology. (2002). A Pearson Education Company. Boston, MA: Samuel Wood & Ellen Green Wood p. 593
It is never mentioned what his grandmother is suffering from but I’ve made the assumption that it’s something along the lines of Alzheimer’s- she doesn’t remember anything and has slowly withered away.
A research published by the Washington University in St. Louis concerning alcohol-dependence suggests that some people have a gene variant that allows signals of pleasure to move quickly from one portion of the brain to the other when alcohol is in use. As the brain continues to experience this pleasure, it will ask for more in return. Someone with this kind of gene might move from social drinking to continuous drinking in no time at all, mainly because of the genes involved.
...abnormal , perhaps in twenty years will be classified as normal. This is the main reason what normal psychology and abnormal psychology differ.
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
Nolen-Hoeksema, S., & Rector, N. A. (2011). Abnormal psychology. (2 ed., p. 297, 321, 322,
Comer, R. J. (2011). Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology (Sixth ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
One thing that defines alcoholism is denial. Early in the development of alcoholism, occasional episodes of excessive drinking are explained away by both parents. Drinking because of being tired, worry, or a bad day is not unbelievable. The idea is that the event is isolated and is not a problem.(Harrison)
Frequent consumptions of alcohol are followed a number of potential health risks. This is more critical to the young body that is still growing. New research has shown that consuming alcohol can negatively impact the physical developments of brain structure. Youths who were influenced by an early drinking were not able to perform as well as nondrinkers in memory-test. Furthermore, the early drinkers may experience a direct effect on brain functioning. The negative effect includes decreased ability in planning and executive functioning, memory, spatial operations, and attention.
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
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...
The cause of alcoholism is a combination of biological, psychological, and cultural factors that may contribute to the development of...