Abnormal Psychology provides the most extensive coverage and integration of multicultural models. The authors help students to understand abnormal behavior as both a scientific and clinical endeavor while providing insight into the tools used by mental health professionals to study and treat disorders. For this purpose, Critical Thinking boxes provide evidence and questions that raise key issues, examine widely-held assumptions, or challenge students' own thinking to prompt them to examine issues as a psychologist would—weighing evidence and applying theory. The Seventh Edition also maintains the prevalence rate, onset, and course charts to aid readers in defining and conceptualizing disorders from the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic categories.
Revisions to the edition include updated coverage of suicide and mental health services issues; integrated information on violence in society and the use of drugs in the U.S.; expanded and balanced data of the biological perspective; updated DSM-IV charts, diagnostic tables, and research throughout; and expanded discussion of the scientific methods.
- Mental Health in Society focus on issues that carry wide implications for society to stimulate critical thinking, evoke alternative views, and provoke discussion to help students explore a broader meaning of abnormal behavior.
- Chapter outlines and opening Focus Questions in the first two pages of each chapter give students an overview of topics and ask questions that guide students to seek answers as they read.
- Integrated chapter summaries revisit the most important concepts and provide possible answers to the Focus Questions.
- Myth and Reality features help dispel students' preconceived notions regarding mental health issues and the field of abnormal behavior in order to enhance their critical-thinking skills.
- Both new and updated case studies and examples from actual clinical files help enliven mental health and disorders.
