Failure to function adequately

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Failure to function adequately

Advantages

  • Attempt to include the subjective experience of the individual and therefore is useful in assessing abnormality
  • Behaviour is observable such as not being able to get out of bed in the morning

Disadvantages

  • Apparently abnormal behaviour might be helpful for the Individual such as washing hands might make someone happy whereas things that are not seen as abnormal such as smoking might cause harm and these behaviours are not included in this definition
  • Someone has to judge whether a patient is distressed and therefore it makes the diagnosis subjective
  • Abnormality does not always stop the person from functioning, they might have distressing inner thoughts
  • Depends on what is seen as every day normal life - in some cultures may people have siestas

Evaluation

This definition can help to spot key symptoms of things such as depression and phobias where people are unable to leave the house or be in social situations therefore cannot go to work in some cases but in other mental illnesses it does not stop them from doing the day-to-day things they need to do it may just be in there mind and therefore this cannot cover the whole range of 'abnormalities' that there is.

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