Case Study Abnormal Psychology

Unusual habits connects to the impact of psychological elements, biological elements in addition to the social factors referring to inadequate relationships. In the face of varied meaning, unusual behavior describes the deviating from norm, which norm is the normal behavior or attribute of the population. As such, Jim habits is unusual because it violates ethical and conventional mores of the society (Breaches societal standards), as such causing social discomfort to others.

For instance, Jim fails to acknowledge the social hints in discussion therefore annoying other interlocutors.

Jim is this case is acting in a way disadvantageous to his own well being by avoiding marrying and social relationships, which is maladaptive (Psychology truths, 2007). Jim behavior is statistically unusual since he is especially poles apart from the society norm, his habits has low score in the society dispersed appropriate qualities DSM-IV describes the "Diagnostic and analytical Manual of mental illness.

It specifies mental illness as a clinical substantial mental or behavioral pattern that occurs in people and relate to the present distress like uncomfortable symptom or impairment, such as problems of significant sphere of operating or with a significant danger of improved of possibility of suffering loss of liberty, death, discomfort, and special needs.

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The syndrome is not a simply a culturally and expectable approved rejoinder to a specific occasion.

It needs to be currently presuming a manifestation of biological, behavioral, or mental dysfunction within an individual. Nonetheless, there is no adequate meaning on the accurate boundaries for the notion of mental disorder (French, 2004).

The definition incorporates the idea of the maladptiveness because the psychological suffering of the individuals embrace maladaptive habits by withdrawing from the household and buddies interactions in addition to well as eating that results in death as laid out in the DSM-IV psychological condition definition.

Another abnormal element captured in the definition is suffering, by mental disorders individuals are at risk of suffering loss of liberty, and pain clearly borrows from the elements of abnormal behavior. According to the DSM-IV definition and description of the mental disorder, Jim is suffering from the mental disorder, within the category of “Axis II, which is personality and mental retardation. ” This DSM-IV axis describes the enduring problems that unnoticed in the axis I disorders.

The personality disorders occasion’s significant troubles in the way individual relates to world encompassing “historic personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder. ” (Salters-Pedneault, 2008). In particular, DSM-IV defines personality disorder as the long-term prototype of behavior and inner experience with the following criteria: deviates from the individual’s cultural expectations (abnormal behavior), in this case Jim misses the requisite social cues in conversation.

He leads a solitary life at age of the 48-year when he supposed to have family within the cultural mores. Additionally, Jim shuns requisite interpersonal relationships a fact, which run counter to the cultural expectations on human beings as social beings. Further, DSM insist that the personality disorder has to be inflexible and pervasive that on aspects of individual life and is not modifiable according to the situation. In addition, this disorder has its genesis in adolescence or early maturity and steady over time.

The case study clearly indicates that Jim has maintained the behavior for like 15 years, and presence of his parents and brothers do not make him change his behavior gives weight to the criteria of the personality disorder as outlined in the DSM-IV manual compilation. The DSM-IV contains an axis system, which each of the axis represent a different category of the mental illness or a manner in which a particular mental illness may influence (Purse, 2009).

In exemplar, key mental illness like, bipolar disorder ranks within Axis 1. The episode of the Jim portrayed in the case falls in the dimension of Axis II. The present edition of DSM-IV published in 1994, offers virtually 400 disorders (Crowe, 2000). The advantage of this is that it enhances diagnostic impartiality by adding decision trees demarcating significant characteristics of disorders, which makes clinicians by collections of questions concerning the presence or the absence of the symptoms.

The present DSM-IV manual comprises of extensive anthology of information organized into portions for easier reference (Purse, 2009). The first section encompasses instructions on the way to use the tools contained in the DSM-IV, while following section contains comprehensive classification systems catalog of the official codes for each single diagnosis. The fourth section comprises of the manual detailing the diagnostic criteria accompanied by a description for each disorder.

Despite the advantages highlighted above, there are some disadvantages in the manual compilation. First, the DSM-IV compilation lacks the exactitude in diagnostic criterion to evidently, differentiate one diagnosis from the other as well as the distinguishing mental disorder, from the situation, such as mental distress. DSM is not visibly clear on how experiences and behaviors cited within the diagnostic criterion justifiably can consider as substantiation of mental disorder as distinctive from rejoinders to life events (Crowe, 2000).