Understanding Psychological Abnormality: Evaluation of Two Methods

Evaluation of two methods defining psychological abnormality
1. Failure To function Adequately
Prior to judge, a person for "psychological abnormality" with the help of the scale of "failure
to function adequately" an expert should understand the definition of adequate functions for
that particular area. After fixing the adequate behavior he should try to figure out the areas
where that individual is lacking in the department of defining the social and work-related
roles. Here the subject may show this tendency to lose control of behavior and actions. He
may start behaving in an irrational fashion as well (McLeod, 2018).
On a symptomatic level, this method is apt to figure out an extraordinary person in the group.
However, the observations made by an expert may deceive him in the absence of the root
causes behind such type of abnormal behavior or disability to function normally. This
method is apt for the places where roles of the individuals are predefined and they are bound
to follow a code of conduct. For instance, the bodyguard of a political leader is duty bound to
function in a certain fashion, if he fails in behaving in a certain way then an observer has to
first figure out the triggers causing that abnormal behavior. Criminal tendencies or the
presence of negative or positive emotions is not a psychological abnormality. However, an
inconsistent pattern of the behavior showing episodes of the "failure to function adequately"
can be considered as a symptom of mental abnormality (Caldas, 2011).
2. Deviation from the social norms
Literature of the world is full of stories where they ridiculed the individuals that were
deviating for the social norms. However, later on, societies of the world accepted them along
with their thought processes. Deviation from the social norms can be a case of "method in the
madness." Sometimes observers perceive radical point of the views and out of the box
behavior of an individual as a deviation from the social norms. The deviation from the social