XIII. Ab-Normal Psychology

Abnormal Psychology (7-9%)

One way to begin this section is by discussing what abnormal behavior is; ask your students to describe someone they believe would be “mentally ill” and then talk about how stereotypes develop. Introduce the structure and use of the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in the diagnosis of mental illness. This reference work is important to the course and one with which your students should be familiar. Discuss the controversy surrounding labeling, which you can illustrate by using Rosenhan’shistoric study. Describe the symptoms and possible causes of various disorders, including anxiety, mood, dissociative, somatoform, personality, organic, and psychotic. You can use selected clips from video series like The Brain, The Mind, and The World of Abnormal Psychology to illustrate these disorders. Or create an assignment that uses case studies from textbooks, and ask students to “diagnose” the disorder based on the described symptoms.

AP students in psychology should be able to do the following:

• Describe contemporary and historical conceptions of what constitutes psychological disorders.

• Recognize the use of the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association as the primary reference for making diagnostic judgments.

• Discuss the major diagnostic categories, including anxiety disorders, bipolar and related disorders, depressive disorders, dissociative disorders, feeding and eating disorders, neuro-developmental disorders, neuro-cognitive disorders, obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, personality disorders, schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, somatic symptom and related disorders, and trauma- and stressor-related disorders and their corresponding symptoms.

• Evaluate the strengths and limitations of various approaches to explaining psychological disorders: medical model, psychoanalytic, humanistic, cognitive, biological, and sociocultural.

• Identify the positive and negative consequences of diagnostic labels (e.g., the Rosenhan study).

• Discuss the intersection between psychology and the legal system (e.g., confidentiality, insanity defense).

Essential Questions:

How do psychologists measure and define abnormal behavior?

How are the various psychological disorders identified and studied?

What impact do these psychological disorders have on individuals, families,

communities, and society?

• Identify the criteria psychologists use to diagnose psychological disorders.

• Differentiate among the different perspectives psychologists take to understand psychological disorders.

• Describe the characteristics of mood disorders.

• Describe the characteristics of anxiety disorders.

• Describe the characteristics of somatoform disorders.