Abnormal Psychology Lecture Notes

Written by David L. Gilles-Thomas, Ph.D., 1989

:: Information herein is still relevant today ::

This web site contains lecture notes for an undergraduate, honors-level course in Abnormal Psychology. It was written in the late 1980's, and as such relies on the American Psychiatric Association's now outdated third (revised) edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (now in its 4th edition). Therefore, the specifics of the classification system and diagnostic criteria described in these lectures will be different from those of today.

Nevertheless, much also remains consistent from the earlier edition of the DSM to the current edition, and, as such, these lectures should still provide useful information for today's reader. These lectures also contain information about the history of the field, philosophical debates, and comparisons of different theoretical approaches.

Each lecture is fully referenced, and there is an extensive reference list following the lecture notes. The lectures also refer to the course text book, the reference for which is:

Carson, R.C., Butcher, J.N., & Coleman, J.C. (1988). Abnormal Psychology and modern life (8th edition). Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresom and Company.

The reader is sometimes referred to handouts -- these, at this time, are not included in this WWW version. Perhaps in the future, should I find the time to scan them in, I will include the handouts here.

There is a lot in these lecture notes: over 200 pages if you were to print out every lecture.

Please note: This is the product of many months of work. Therefore, if you use material from these lecture notes for your own papers or other works, please reference these notes appropriately (to fail to do so is plagiarism). (See your profession's manual of style for guidelines on referencing material on the internet. Click here to see the format for referencing on-line material suggested by the American Psychological Association).