Criteria for Abnormality. Critical Thinking. Psychology Essay

Criteria for Abnormality
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Criteria for Abnormality
The world of psychiatry contains many approaches for the treatment of mental disorders. Successful treatment requires proper categorization of mental disorders. Medical practitioners use several documents to diagnose and classify the disorders. The documents include the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, and International Statistical Classification of Diseases. The purpose of the creation of the documents was to establish a common language that medical practitioners, and other personnel in the health industry, can use for referencing. The purpose of the essay is to look at the criteria that qualify as most salient and valid for abnormality.
The application of an appropriate document to the study of abnormality requires a proper definition of the concept. Medical practitioners needed a standard to help determine the difference between behavior that is normal, and behavior that arises because of pathological influence (Khoury, Langer & Pagnini, 2014). The problem with the theory is there are no criteria for the determination of cut-offs that separate normal from pathological. Whatever criteria exists is subjective because there do not exist laboratory markers that define the boundary. From a cultural perspective, the differences between the two concepts are different as what may be normal for one culture is abnormal for another. Interpretations of diagnostics for abnormality also differ. The third point of contention is that the symptoms for determining normality can be justified in one context and not in another. Differences in context in such situations will lead to biased opinions. Even if the basis for normality becomes how one perceives reality, reality changes constantly. The conflicts are w...