Psychopathology Essay

Psychopathology is a discipline under the career of Forensic Psychology that can spark interests within a lot of people, that they may not even knew they had. With shows such as Criminal Minds, Making a Murderer, and the Forensic Files available to the public, it is easy to develop curiousity about how the mind works. Though the brain is generally wired the same within every human being in regards to anatomy, there are differences in how people react to the same things. These small variations can seperate a Psychopath from someone who is a normal, working member of society. More Specifically, Psychopathology is a branch of science that studies mental disorders as a means to explain these illnesses in terms of psychological processes. This discipline was discovered by Karl Jaspers in 1963, who decribed it as a “Mental Phenomena.” Earlier explanations of mental illnesses were the …show more content…
These are Deviance, Distress, Dysfunction, and Danger also known as “The Four D’s.” Deviance can be described as chronic lying oe stealing, Distress is behaviors and feelings that are result of normal occurences, Dysfuction realted to feelings of not being able to function on a day to day basis, and Danger being potentially harmful to others. Majority of information present on this discipline comes from the Diagnostic and tatistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In current research, “modern DSM’s have been fundamentally helpful in psychopathology research” (Krueger & Markon, 2006). But, as research continues to expand the informtion has been challenged by new concsepts. In a study by Klein and Santiago (2014) it was stated that “many people who meet criteria for depression meet criteria for other disorders as well.” The field of Forensic Psychology as well as Psyhopathology is steadily growing, and one day it will be a more prominent