Preface xxvii
The chapter stories present individuals as clinicians and researchers often fi ndthem—with sets of symptoms: It is up to the clinician or researcher to make sense
of the symptoms, determining which of them may meet the criteria for a particular
disorder, which may indicate an atypical presentation, and which may arise from a
comorbid disorder. Thus, we ask the student to see situations from the point of view
of clinicians and researchers, who must sift through the available information to
develop hypotheses about possible diagnoses and then obtain more information to
confi rm or disconfi rm these hypotheses.
In the fi rst two chapters, the opening story is about a mother and daughter—BigEdie and Little Edie Beale—who were the subject of a famous documentary in the 1970s
and whose lives have been portrayed more recently in the play and HBO fi lm Grey
Gardens. In these initial chapters, we offer a description of the Beales’ lives and examples
of their very eccentric behavior to address two questions central to psychopathology:
How is abnormality defi ned? Why do psychological disorders arise?
The chapter stories in subsequent chapters focus on different examples of symptomsof psychological disorders, drawn from the lives of other people. For example, in
Chapter 7, we discuss the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes and the football star
Earl Campbell, both of whom suffered from symptoms of anxiety; in Chapter 12, we
discuss the Genain quadruplets—all four of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia.
To provide a fl avor of how we use such stories, here’s an example from the beginning
of Chapter 13 on personality disorders. The chapter begins like this:
Rachel Reiland wrote a memoir called Get Me Out of Here, about living with a person-
ality disorder. In the opening of the book, Reiland remembers Cindy, the golden-haired
grade-school classmate who was their teacher’s favorite. At the end of a painting class,
Cindy’s painting was beautiful, with distinctive trees. Unfortunately, Rachel’s painting
looked like a “putrid blob.” Rachel then recounts:
“I seethed with jealousy as Mrs. Schwarzheuser showered Cindy with com-
pliments. Suddenly, rage overwhelmed me. I seized a cup of brown paint and
dumped half of it over my picture. Glaring at Cindy, I leaned across the table
and dumped the other half over her drawing. I felt a surge of relief. Now Cindy’s
picture looked as awful as mine.
“‘Rachel!’ Mrs. Schwarzheuser yelled. ‘You’ve completely destroyed Cindy’s
beautiful trees. Shame on you. You are a horrible little girl. The paint is every-
where—look at your jeans.’
“My blue jeans were soaked with brown paint. They looked ugly. I looked
ugly. Mrs. Schwarzheuser frantically wiped up paint to keep it from dripping
onto the fl oor. Everyone was watching.
“I felt my body go numb. My legs, arms, and head were weightless. Float-
ing. It was the same way I felt when Daddy pulled off his belt and snapped it.
Anticipation of worse things to come—things I had brought on myself because I
was different.
“ ‘In all my years, I’ve never seen a child like you. You are the worst little girl
I’ve ever taught. Go sit in the corner, immediately.’
“Shame on Rachel. That language I understood. And deserved....
“Mrs. Schwarzheuser was right. I was horrible.” (Reiland, 2004, pp. 1–2)We return to Reiland’s story throughout Chapter 13, noting when her symptoms
resemble those of one personality disorder or another, as well as the ways in which
her symptoms may not meet the diagnostic criteria for various personality disorders.
The stories in other chapters are handled similarly.
From the Outside
The feature called From the Outside provides third-person accounts (typically case
presentations by mental health clinicians) of disorders or particular symptoms
of disorders. These accounts provide an additional opportunity for memory
consolidation of the material, an additional set of retrieval cues, a further sense of
how symptoms and disorders affect real people; these cases also serve to expose
students to professional case material. The From the Outside feature covers an
array of disorders, including cyclothymic disorder (Case 6.5) in Chapter 6, panic