Although some abnormal behavior patterns are different from the usual and somewhat dangerous for the society, some of them just prevent individuals from effectively dealing with the difficulties of life and bother only these individuals.

The approaches regarding abnormal behavior are based on two conflicting ideas. According to the first approach, obeying to norms of the society symbolizes normality and the divergence from these norms to abnormal. According to the other approach, obeying social rules to some extent is necessary for social life. The attitudes developed against these rules are harmful for the individual’s self and the society. However, the real normality criterion is not the approval of the society but the fact that whether the individual feels good or bad. The notion of “feeling good” includes not only to survive life but also to realize personal
potentials and wishes.

In every society, there are social expectations, norms and, values.
As long as you obey with society, your behavior is considered as normal. Definitions of normality depends on the person’s time place and situation.

Abnormal as a word means “away from the norm”. Any behavior that diverges or differs from the acceptable norms of the society are considered abnormal. All human groups create their own norms to form a basis (reference) for their wrong or correct behaviors. This situation provides answers to the questions focusing on how to behave towards certain people in certain
places and times.

There might be disagreements among different groups regarding what correct and suitable behavior is. For instance, homosexuality can be acceptable in some parts of large societies while it is defined as an abnormal behavior by some groups in the same society. When considered from this point of view, although norms are often taken into consideration while evaluating abnormal behaviors, they are not suitable criteria to make such a decision because norms are not universal and may change in time.

If the behavior of an individual causes tension or stress, it is considered abnormal. Here, if behaviors or opinions of individuals disturb them, a treatment might be necessary. This approach deals with the individual according to his own views rather than society’s. 

Societies account for abnormal behaviors generally within the framework of acquired and learned belief systems. The main weakness of this approach is the lack of a structure to reveal the differences between desired and undesired behaviors. If such a structure does not exist, average behavior is determined according
to the ideal. Since it is difficult to reach the ideal, most people experience adaptation problems in certain phases of their lives.

• Psychodynamic Approach
• Cognitive Behaviorist Approach
• Humanist – Existentialist approach
• Sociocultural Approach

Psychodynamic approach, was developed by Sigmund Freud. He believed adult abnormality was caused by unresolved conflicts in early childhood. He said that abnormal behavior arise from mental conflicts and drives that the person has been unable to resolve or coordinate with the realities of life and that therefore generate anxiety.

Id: id wants immediate gratification of its desires. The motivating forces for the id is the libido, which is the body’s pleasure seeking (sexual pleasure) force.

Ego: Ego is the rational part of the mind. Ego is concerned with behaving in a way that is socially acceptable. It operates on a reality principal and ensures that the id gets what it wants but by socially appropriate and acceptable means. 

Superego: Superego wants to live in accordance with ethical principles. If these aspects fail to achieve a good working relationship, psychological problems could result.

Behaviorist approach argues that abnormal behaviors occur because of learned behaviors like all other behaviors. It assumes that, unlike classical conditioning and operant conditioning, abnormal behaviors are shaped by the effects of internal processes such as expectations and a wish to see the results of the things done.

• Maladaptive behavior is caused by faulty and irrational cognitions.
• It is the way you think about a problem, rather than the problem itself that causes mental disorders.
• Individuals can overcome mental disorders by learning to use more appropriate cognitions.

• Cognitive structures: how an individual organizes information; for example, do they see a spider as just another daily object that they need to live with or do they see that spider as an object of fear?
• Cognitive content: whether a person thinks negatively or positively about certain situations
• Cognitive processes: how individuals then process this information and operate on it and whether they do so in a rational or irrational way
• Cognitive products: this refers to the conclusion that the individual will draw from the processed information.

According to this approach, individuals are born with a tendency to behave ideally in terms of psychological development, growth and healthy balance. This tendency is called self-realization. In this approach, the individual consistently expresses his wishes and needs according to his own psychological development needs. Such an expression pattern is sometimes observed as aggressiveness, sometimes as sexuality and sometimes as a wish to be independent. 

The sociocultural approach makes the assumption that people’s behavior both normal and abnormal is shaped by the kind of family group, society, and culture in which they live. According to this view, the kinds of relationships that evolve with others may support abnormal behaviors and even cause them to occur.

The reason of this disorder might be a virus or microbe, organic deficiencies from birth and head trauma. Whatever the problem is, this model has three assumptions:
• Patient suffers from a physical or emotional pain due to an illness.
• It is possible to diagnose this illness by identfying certain symptoms

• Each illness has a unique and certain reason

They are group of mental illnesses and the distress they cause can keep you from carrying on with your life normally. Anxiety is overwhelming and hard to control. Primary anxiety-related diagnosis include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social phobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry about everyday life events with no obvious reasons for worry. People with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder tend to always expect disaster and can’t stop worrying about health, money, family, work, or school. Daily life becomes a constant state of worry, fear, and dread. The anxiety so dominates the person’s thinking that it interferes with daily functioning, including work, school, social activities, and relationships.

Disturbingly intense experience of fear or terror despite the lack of rational reason is called panic disorder. The individuals with panic disorder, which is a different type of anxiety disorders and is accompanied with frequent panic attacks, can think that there might be a disaster and therefore feel chest pain.

Common symptoms associated with a panic attack include:
• racing heartbeat or palpitations
• shortness of breath
• feeling like you are choking
• dizziness (vertigo)

• lightheadedness
• nausea
• sweating or chills
• shaking or trembling
• changes in mental state, including a feeling
of derealization (feeling of unreality) or
depersonalization (being detached fromoneself)
• numbness or tingling in your hands or feet
• chest pain or tightness
• fear that you might die

The irrational fear felt despite the lack of any danger is called “phobia”. For instance, being afraid of height, darkness, open or closed areas, elevators, crowd, snakes or the opposite sex are examples of phobias. Phobias can be classified as “simple” and “complex” phobias. Simple phobias are usually things that many people fear to some extent, such as snakes, spiders darkness or heights.

Social phobia can be observed in some people as the fear of speaking in front of people. Social phobias may simply be extreme forms of shyness For example, fears of public speaking, fears of eating alone and meeting new people, avoid situations in which others might evaluate them.

The individuals having this psychological illness develop habits that they repeat quite often but are not able to control them easily. These weird habits, which seem to be harmless, emerge to help individuals to control and regulate their intense and complex feelings. When these repeated actions and ideas become a source of anxiety and unhappiness, the normal life of the individual starts to go wrong.

Somatoform disorders are psychological difficulties that take on physical form. Even if there is not a specific reason, there might be somatoform disorders caused by anxiety. Emotional determinants are effective in the emergence of physical illnesses. Since the ways to discharge these undesired emotions are not available in this type of disorders, tension extends to internal organs. The unconscious plays an important role in this process.

Hypochandriasis refers to the situation when an individual is too much interested in his /her body functions and develops irrational beliefs about disorders or illnesses affecting the functions of his /her internal organs.

People having this problem are reluctant to see a doctor despite the presence of the symptoms of an illness. The individual rejects the treatment because of the following reasons: thinking that nothing will happen to him/her; the wish to retain self-consciousness about being strong and to avoid the anxiety caused by the possibility of an illness.

The individuals having such a disorder may suffer from functional inadequacies in sense organs although there are no physiological or neurological reasons. For instance, an individual may suffer from hearing loss or paralysis despite the absence of a physical disorder.

Psychogenic pain is similar to conversion hysteria; the difference being the presence of an acute pain or ache in a part of the body rather than function loss. This pain has no physiological or neurological reasons. This pain or ache can be a tool to avoid anxiety and receive attention from the people around.

The dissociative disorders have in common some type of dissociation or separation in consciousness or identity. Dissociative
disorders involve problems with memory, identity, emotion, perception, behavior and sense of self.

• Dissociative amnesia,
• Dissociative fugue
• Multiple personality

“Dissociative amnesia (loss of memory) is about the sudden loss of important information (knowledge) due to stressful and traumatic incidents although the capacity to learn new information is not deteriorated. Such a memory loss cannot be considered a simple forgetfulness problem.

Sudden whole memory loss is called dissociative fugue. The patient sets off for an unplanned sudden travel to a far place because of a refusal, loss, failure, marriage problems or financial problems. He/she does not remember an important portion
of his/her previous identity and often adopts a new one.

In this type of illness, one individual displays a different personalities and identities. The patient controls the personality, attitudes and behaviors he/she has at that moment as if the other identity does not exist. When he/she switches to the second identity, the real one is often not remembered. Real personality is not aware of the other, and the switch from one identity to the other is often sudden and each identity has its own characteristics.

Serious psychological problems are called psychosis and they are often treated in hospital environments. Psychosis are categorized as functional and organic psychosis. If no brain damage or disorder such as schizophrenia or psychotic emotional disorders exists, it is called functional psychosis. If there are brain damage, brain tumor or failures in the brain’s functions, it is called organic psychosis.  If no brain damage or disorder such as schizophrenia or psychotic emotional disorders exists, it is called functional psychosis.

Delusions  are false ideas, like everyone around him/her spying on him. Paranoid schizophrenia is characterized by elaborate hallucinations and delusions, especially delusions of persecutions an delusions of grandeur. 

This can range from having problems with routine behaviors like hygiene or choosing appropriate clothing for the weather, to unprovoked outburst, to impulsive and uninhibited actions.

Changing from one topic to another. Persons may also make up their own words or sounds. Even those people with schizophrenia who have normal or above – average intelligence are impaired on tasks requiring selective attention or executive functions. There are negative symptoms, that are lost from the person’s personality.
• Social withdrawal
• Lack of drive or initiative
• Emotianal disturbance
• Lack of interest

• Simple schizophrenia
• Paranoid Schizophrenia
• Catatonic Schizophrenia
• Hebephrenia schizophrenia

The individual has the feelings of insignificance, guilt and disparity. Some patients talk about their imaginary sins and often cry. Being quite far away from their normal life, these patients find it difficult to carry out even certain daily life activities such as dressing oneself and having a bath. The consequences of emotional depressions become so severe that the individual cannot take care of himself/herself. The person has an increasing appetite and too much to sleep. Some forget to eat or drink. He or she becomes very hypersensitive to rejection and has a very bad social life.

It is a mood disorder that manifests itself in the form of alternating periods of depression and mania. There are changes in an individual’s mood and behavior switching between an over excited state called manic and a state of feeling hopeless called depressive. If the symptoms are a mix of those experienced in the manic and depressive states, the state is called mixed.

• Not caring about the safety of himself, his acquintances or other people
• Disregarding social behaviors and constantly carrying out actions that might lead to his arrestment
• Displaying dishonest behaviors such as telling lies constantly, using different nicknames and
deceiving others for personal benefits or just for pleasure
• Displaying sudden behaviors without considering the consequences, not making any plans for future
• Bad temper or tendency to be involved in fights and attacks

• Blaming himself for failing to do a task or managing his budget unwisely
• Being indifferent and trying to prove his innocence and not feeling remorse despite the conduct of a harm-giving behavior such as theft or physical damage

• Exaggerate own importance
• He/or she is preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, beauty, intelligence
• Requires constant attention and admiration from others
• Has unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment
• Takes advantage of others to reach his or her own goals
• Disregards the feelings of others, lacks empathy
• Is often envious of others or believes other people are envious of him or her
• Shows arrogant behaviors and attitudes

Sexual disorders are examined in three categories.  The first category involves disorders that need to be treated such as loss of sexual desire and impotance. Those commiting exhibitionism crime enjoy this action when people are scared or get shocked. In other words, the real aim is not assaulting the opposite sex. Pyschodynamic approach explains exhibitionism as a reaction to internal conflicts while other approaches suggest that it is a way for males lacking self-confidence to prove themselves. Another sexual disorder called “rape” rarely occurs as a result of an uncontrolled sudden drive. This action is often preplanned by the individual. The reasons of rape can be listed as follows:
• Hatred for opposite sex
• Wish to prove onself
• Wrong belief that the victim wants this action or encourages it to happen
• Regarding the other sex as an object.

The most common and addictive substances are alcohol, amphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marihuana.

• An unmature personality structure displaying self-centered behaviors and having diffciulties in establishing genuine emotional relationships with people
• Suffering from constant depression and feeling disparity, loneliness and worthlessness
• Being highly dependent on people around him
• Developing hostility for other people
• Not being mature in terms of sexuality