Abnormality

Psychopathology – Understanding Mental Ill Health

In this course, Dr Jude Stevenson (University of Glasgow) explores concepts of mental health. In the first lecture, we look at what abnormality means. In the second lecture, we approach the practice of diagnostic labelling, discussing both the positives and negatives of doing this, as well as walking through two key databases used to do it officially. Next, we take a deep dive into Rosenhan’s 1973 paper ‘On Being Sane in Insane Places’ which investigated the legitimacy of psychiatric diagnoses, with some concerning results. In the fourth and final lecture, we take a walk through the history of understanding mental ill health, contextualising the timeline into three primary models – the supernatural model, the medical model, and the cognitive behavioural model.

Abnormality

In this lecture, we think about defining abnormality and understanding what normality is in the context of mental health, focusing in particular on: (i) example behaviours which are deemed abnormal under certain circumstances but might be considered normal or expected under others; (ii) the four key factors which can impact how we view abnormality being statistical frequency, social norms, personal distress, and distress to others.