Abnormal Psychology, Study Guide

Work more effectively and gauge your progress along the way! This Study Guide is designed to accompany Hansell and Damour’s Abnormal Psychology. In line with the text, the study guide activities stress meaning and application over memorization. Each chapter includes a plethora of study questions and practice tests, along with a chapter summary highlighting key concepts and terms.

Abnormal Psychology by James Hansell and Lisa Damour offers a new, innovative approach to the teaching of abnormal psychology. Rather than using the DSM-IV-TR as the backbone of their text, the authors introduce six core concepts that illuminate this complex and ever changing field. These concepts, which appear in each chapter of the text, help students understand the material, and make the field intriguing and appealing:

• The importance of context in defining and understanding abnormality
• The continuum between normal and abnormal behavior
• Cultural and historical relativism in defining and classifying abnormality
• The advantages and limitations of diagnoses
• The principle of multiple causality
• The connection between mind and body in abnormal behavior

The text fully covers the latest DSM-IV-TR system and categories, but uses the core concepts as an organizing force to provide an effective alternative for professors searching for a more dynamic text. Hansell and Damour have also streamlined the traditional table of contents to a fourteen chapter, affordable text without eliminating important material. For example, research methods are discussed throughout the text, social and legal issues are addressed in the chapters where they are most relevant, and treatment methods are covered in every chapter rather than in a separate chapter on psychotherapy.