Behavioral and Psychopathology Analysis Case Study

Abnormal Psychology

Lamanda has an etiology that has causal factors gathered right from her childhood. She is behaving in a manner likely to indicate an abnormal psychological problem. No wonder the social worker, she meets at the restaurant she currently works as a waiter, advises her to seek for professional assistance. Lamanda seems confused, disorganized, withdrawn and is living in denial of herself and origin. There is an observable trend in her recent lifestyle, where she has chosen to lead a sedentary lifestyle and her health and physical stature seems to be deteriorating. She dislikes her job and is disinterested in looking for another. She has withdrawn from the other employees at the restaurant and her social circles. She has acquired a new trend of lousiness and laziness. She has lost interest in her physical appearance and personal grooming. She seems to have lost interest in the important things in life like pursuing further studies, maintain a stable relationship with her boyfriend and vigor at her workplace. She is slowly drifting into drugs and alcoholism due to her sorry state.

Lamanda's sorry state appears to have some distal causal factors in her childhood. During her elementary school, Lamanda was constantly harassed by her classmates because of her mixed race. She was born of an African-American mother and a Caucasian father. The harassment at elementary school slowly started shaping a negative view and opinion in her about herself. She started concealing her identity from her friends while in high school. She then gets into an identity crisis where she claims that she is neither black nor white, but she is just her.

One of the contributing causal factors to Lamanda's current state appears to have been the strong sexual advances from her 47-year-old softball coach in her sophomore year in high school.She has dismissed the incident and never considered it seriously. However, the effects of this incident seem to start affecting her when she gets her first boyfriend in her junior year of high school. She enjoys the warm and supportive relationship with Morris Silverstein, which leads to sexual intimacy. She enjoyed the sexual experience but did not discuss with her parents about her sexual issues.

Another contributing causal factor to Lamanda's state was her breakup with Morris during her first year of college. He leaves her claiming that he wanted to date other girls. I believe the breakup hurt, but she treated it casually and never sought for any psychological help or elderly advice on how to get over a breakup. The neglect of the healing process of the breakup hurt caused her to date sporadically in college and engage in bisexual experimentation. It also affected her one-year relationship with Brett, whom she treats casually and does not take the relationship seriously.

In Lamanda's case, normal behavior and psychopathology can be differentiated in her behavioral system at the workplace, and at her house, but also from her attitude towards her social circles and further studies. Normal behavior will not cause Lamanda to resent her current workplace as a waitress, and make her unwilling to look for another place of work. She….....