Course Description

In this course, we will explore psychological disorders, their causes, and their treatments based on criteria expressed in the DSM-5-TR. We will be scientists, practitioners, and regular people as we seek to understand the science and experience of psychopathology. This is not a “therapy course,” but we will also consider accepted treatment strategies for disorders, always emphasizing empathic, respectful treatment. To do these things well, we will need to: (a) observe behavior carefully and objectively; (b) understand the behavior in context for that individual, setting and culture; (c) identify developmental and cultural norms and compare people’s behavior to these; and (d) compare behavior with some overarching definition of mental health. Why? Sometimes it “makes sense” to be depressed. Sometimes it is “abnormal” to react with laughter. We will discuss several types of disorders such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, substance-related disorders, and neurodevelopmental disorders. We will also touch on a historical background to mental illness and consider legal and ethical issues pertaining to psychological disorders.

• Please note: this course is not designed to facilitate diagnosis or treatment of yourself or others; it is simply an introduction to psychological disorders.

Learning Objectives

By the end of our course, I am hopeful and confident that you will be able to:

• Define a psychological disorder.
• Articulate the role of assessment in diagnosing psychological disorders.
• Apply DSM-5-TR criteria to recognize symptoms of disorders and diagnose cases.
• Describe standard interventions used to treat psychological disorders.
• Describe how sociocultural context can shape conclusions about behavior and disorders.
• Identify key ethical principles governing psychological practice for the protection of clients and practitioners.

Textbook Information

This comprehensive, ready-to-adopt Abnormal Psychology book provides thorough coverage of topics from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, including 2022 updates from the DSM-5-TR. Students learn about all of the major psychological disorders and examine the etiology, epidemiology, and treatment methods related to each. The book includes frequent examples, case studies, videos, and practice opportunities to foster application and critical thinking.

This book is built from a variety of open educational resources including OpenStax Psychology and NOBA Psychology. The book was developed with the help of a dedicated team of psychologists and practitioners.

Book Improvements

We believe in making continuous improvements to our courses in order to enhance and facilitate student learning. This newest version of the book includes a vast number of data-driven improvements to assessment questions and text content in order to better illustrate, clarify, and evaluate concepts.

Contributors

This book was developed by Lumen Learning with significant contributions by:

Primary Content Authors
Sonja Ann Miller, Hudson Valley Community College
Robert (Bob) Hoople, SUNY Oneanta
Christina Hicks, Contributor
Julie Lazzara, Paradise Valley Community College
Amber Gilewski, Tompkins Cortland Community College
Jessica Traylor, Gordon State College
Anton Tolman, Utah Valley University
Julie Manley, Coppin State University
Margaret Krone, Graduate Research Assistant, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Wallis Back, Glendale Career College

About Lumen

Lumen Learning courseware is based on open educational resources (OER). When we can find well designed, effective OER that are appropriately licensed, we use them in our courseware. When we can’t find pre-existing OER, we create original content and license it as OER (under a Creative Commons Attribution license).

Lumen’s authoring process doesn’t end when our courseware is released. Our choice to adopt open educational resources means that we have the copyright permissions necessary to engage in continuous improvement of our learning content. Consequently, our courses are continually being revised and updated. Errata reported for our courseware are fixed in a matter of days, as opposed to the traditional model in which errors persist until the next “edition” is printed (often a year or more). Students and faculty can suggest improvements to our courses directly from within the courseware as they use it. And we conduct regular analyses to determine where students are struggling the most in our courseware, and make improvements that specifically target these areas.

Given our unique approach, our list of authors and other contributors may look different than the lists you are used to seeing. We provide both a list of the primary content authors (the people involved in the initial creation of the course) and a list of everyone who has contributed suggestions and other improvements to the course since it was first released. We invite you to join us as we create courseware that supports student learning more effectively each semester.

If you’d like to connect with us to learn more about adopting this course, please Contact Us.

You can also make an appointment for OER Office Hours to connect virtually with a live Lumen expert about any question you may have.