It’s human nature to wonder why we act the way that we do and why things
happen. So many scholars over the years have come up with numerous theories in order
to categorize the things that are known and explanations of what it all means. Life is full
of trials and tribulations and those who study maladaptive behavior usually focus on the
thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and skills one uses during daily living.
Feelings, thoughts, perceptions and skills all combine to aid in creating our mental
states and lead to behavioral abnormalities. Thoughts are made up of ideas, concepts and
the internal dialogue a person has within their mind. Perceptions are how one interprets
incoming sensory signals through processing and organizing the information. Feelings
are simply subjective states including happiness or sadness. Skills are the basic
capabilities a person has including intelligence, memory, attention and language (Sarason
& Sarason, 2005, p.45).
Clinicians and researchers use both formal and informal theories to analyze and
explain behaviors, and to also aid in deciding how to treat each individual effectively.
There are currently six theoretical perspectives that are used quite prevalently today: the
biological perspective, the psychodynamic perspective, the behavioral perspective, the
cognitive perspective, the humanistic-existential perspective and the community-cultural
perspective (Sarason & Sarason, 2005, p.46).
The biological perspective revolves around the idea that a disturbance in the body
is responsible for every physical or behavioral disorder. The biological viewpoint also
assumes that all maladaptive behavior is caused by a disordered body part or function.
The biological perspective may also po...
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...ge, he was never going to mature and
change. Maybe today having lost the best person in his life who truly cared for him and
loved him deeply, he can see the err of his ways. In leaving him, I told him I only hoped
he had learned from his mistakes, too, and treated the next person to come along with
complete honesty and respect. Today I am in the most amazingly perfect relationship
with my soulmate and tell myself that perhaps I had to experience the absolute worst to
appreciate the best. I am lucky.
References
Nystul, Michael S. (2006). Introduction to counseling: an art and science perspective
(3rd Ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Sarason & Sarason, (2005). Abnormal psychology, the problem of
maladaptive behavior (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall
www.dsmivtr.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ICD-9_codes
A criminal’s reasoning for committing a crime begins with the psychological study and environment of the criminal. Usually they have specific abnormal characteristics and were raised in an unhealthy environment as a child. David Berkowitz also known as the Son of Sam, is a serial killer who is currently imprisoned for committing six murders and several injuries to others around New York City in 1976-1977. He focused his killings on young women and young couples.
Scientists have been focusing on the impact of genes on behavior and the development of psychological disorders. This research has contributed to the understanding of many disorders, specifically substance-related disorders.
Abnormal Psychology Abnormal psychology in the area within psychology that is focused on maladaptive behavior-its causes, consequences, and treatment. Abnormal psychology deals with how it feels to be different, the meanings the get attached to being different, and how society deals with people whom it considers to be different. The spectrum of differences is wide, ranging from reality defying delusions and severe debilitations to worries and behavioral quirks that we would be better off not having but do not significantly interfere with our daily lives. An example of the milder end of the spectrum is a man who was an eminently successful district attorney, was elected governor of New York on three occasions, and was almost elected president of the United States in 1948. This man, Thomas E. Dewy, reached the pinnacle of success, displaying such qualities as rectitude, efficiency, precision, and nearly limitless capacity for hard work.
There are multiple criteria that come into play when determining a psychological disorder. One reason is because, it is hard to know for sure if an action is abnormal or not. Something could be abnormal in our country, but a custom in another.
Culture has a huge influence on how people view and deal with psychological disorders. Being able to successfully treat someone for a mental illness has largely to do with what they view as normal in their own culture. In Western cultures we think that going to a counselor to talk about our emotions or our individual problems and/or getting some type of drug to help with our mental illness is the best way to overcome and treat it, but in other cultures that may not be the case. In particular Western and Asian cultures vary in the way they deal with psychological disorders. In this paper I am going to discuss how Asian cultures and Western cultures are similar and different in the way they view psychological disorders, the treatments and likelihood of getting treatment, culture bound disorders, and how to overcome the differences in the cultures for optimal treatments.
In a country based around free will, the United States contains a vast variety of personalities and behaviors. Plenty of people, probably more than we know, exert abnormal behavior. Abnormal behavior is patterns of emotion, thought, and action that are considered pathological. Historically, people blame witchcraft for this eccentric type of behavior and tended to perform exorcisms in hopes of abolishing such actions. Anxiety disorders and personality disorders, two forms of abnormal behavior, can alter a person’s personality as a result of life experiences.
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.
My choice of research was in the play behaviors of children as well as aggression. Breaking the topic down more, behavior relates to the psychology and the psyche of each individual. The definition of psychology is “science of mind and behavior” (Clavijo, 2013). After reading the article by Clavijo, I have realized that psychology can be defined in three ways such as the study of the mind, the study of behavior, and the study of the mind and behavior. In the text “The Developing Person” by Berger, behavior is learned through social learning. Children learn different behaviors through the observation of others, others being children and adults. Different people have affects on a child’s life that can affect their behavior. A child’s behavior is heavily influenced by their parents. A son may speak aggressively and without respect towards his mother because this is the way that his father speaks to her therefore he feels that is how to communicate with his mother (Berger, 200, 2012). Moving into play behaviors, children learn from other children in how to play. Most believe cognitive growth relies on child’s play time. Vygotsky and Piaget both believe that when children play it is beneficial, but according to Vygotsky, playing enables a child to think outside the box and create their own meaning from objects, using their imagination. Piaget believes that child benefit from playing together because children and sharing their knowledge and making it more concrete ideas and thoughts. There are four stages of plays, with the fourth stage being the highest most complicated play which consists of rules and guidelines for the game. The lowest level or play would be functional play being infants shaking rattles, clapping their hands, or blow...
...to make life predictable, to be able to shape our future just as we want
Bio-Psychologists study the principles of biology as it relates to the comprehension of psychology in the field neuroscience that underlies ones emotions, ideology, and actions (Brittanica). Based upon the conduction of research, the relationship between the brain and ones behavior extends to the physiological process in one’s intellect. Scientists are cognizant that neurotransmitters function as a significant role in mood regulation and other aspects of psychological problems including depression and anxiety. A biological perspective are relevant to psychology in three techniques including: the comparative method, physiology, and the investigation of inheritance (Saul Mc. Leod).
My boyfriend and I were so happy; we were such a “perfect couple.” He was truly a great guy, and I ,a well rounded character. I thought I knew him but fate would prove me wrong. He once told me that we would make it through anything, but I knew this was different he had dreams, and so much potential, this would surely detour him from his goals in life. My partner knew as well as I did that me getting pregnant was an accident but in the end he did not hesitate walking out on me, and there my chaos began.
Psychology is the investigation of the mind and how it processes and directs our thoughts, actions and conceptions. However, in 1879 Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany. Nevertheless, the origins of psychology go all the way back thousands of years starting with the early Greeks. This foundation is closely connected to biology and philosophy; and especially the subfields of physiology which is the study of the roles of living things and epistemology, which is the study of comprehension and how we understand what we have learned. The connection to physiology and epistemology is often viewed as psychology, which is the hybrid offspring of those two fields of investigation.
Abnormal psychology is the branch psychology that deals with the study of abnormal behavior in an attempt to describe, predict, and explain in order to change behaviors. There are four criteria used in the determination of what is considered to be abnormal they are deviance, distress, dysfunction, and danger (Comer, 2012). Though deviance is hard to pinpoint as it is defined by an individual’s culture and society. The different ways in which to approach treatment for individuals.
Public Safety Officials have been battling the difficult question of profiling for quite a while. The question is how do they know the suspected individual fit the category associated with an offense? While it has been proven that many profiling cases are somewhat directed to a racial profile, it can be proven that people, given the discretion, are able to identify explanations for a series of behavioral events by identifying what that behavior accredits to. This theory, identified by Frite Heider, “suggested that we have a tendency to give casual explanations for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition,” called the attribution theory. Until recently, a study of the like was considered to be a branch of sociology and not a form of psychology. Social psychology essentially became the focus on the individual rather than the group as a whole. Many thoughtful ideas are collected in response to the studies of social psychology. Human cognition is understood to arise from interacting socially; highlighting the importance of socialization. We use social cognition to develop our explanations and our ideas on why a person’s behavior is/does what it is/does.
look back in life, there are many things that I would change, but there is one decision that