Abnormal Psychology

I finally got through Gerald Davison and John Neale’s Abnormal Psychology textbook. I hoped to learn something about schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, and other conditions, beyond the fictional portrayals that appear in Law & Order episodes, and the textbook accomplishes that goal.

It starts with introductory material about psychological paradigms, DSM classifications, research methods, and so on. After that, the bulk of the book examines specific disorders. The last chapter, which is the most compelling, deals with legal and ethical issues such as committing people to mental institutions and the insanity defense.

The descriptions of people’s behavior when afflicted by those disorders, along with some representative case studies, are rather interesting. Theories regarding causes are less appealing, because current understanding is rather nebulous and statistical analyses get tiresome rather quickly. The discussions of how the major schools of psychological thought treat each disorder become monotonous.

Reading a textbook, instead of a book written for casual readers, has various pros and cons. The summaries and glossary made it easier to review the main points. However, the textbook is obligated to cover the full breadth of the subject, including some boring bits. Though it’s reasonably well written and educational, I’m not sure whether I’d recommend Abnormal Psychology as leisure reading.