Maladaptive Behaviour

There are certain categories of behavior that suggest the presence of psychological disorders which are maladaptive in that they threaten the well-being of the individual. These categories include long periods of discomfort, impaired functioning, bizarre behavior, and disruptive behavior.

Long Periods of Discomfort
Everyone experiences some kind of psychological discomfort during their life. This could be anything as simple as worrying about an exam to grieving the death of a loved one. This distress, however, is related to real, related, or threatened events and passes away with time. When such distressing feelings, however, persist for an extended period of time and seem to be unrelated to events surrounding the person, they would be considered abnormal and could suggest a psychological disorder.

Impaired Functioning
Here, again, there must be made a distinction between simply a passing period of inefficiency and prolonged inefficiency which seems unexplainable.

Bizarre Behavior
There are many things people do that others would find strange. Bizarre behavior that has no rational basis, however, seems to indicate that the individual is confused. The psychoses frequently bring on hallucinations (baseless sensory perceptions) or delusions (beliefs which are patently false yet held as truth by the individual).

Disruptive Behavior
Disruptive behavior means impulsive, apparently uncontrollable behavior that disrupts the lives of others or deprives them of their human rights on a regular basis. This type of behavior is characteristic of a severe psychological disorder.

All of these types of behavior are maladaptive because they directly affect the well-being of the individual and those around them, and block the growth and fulfillment of the individual's potential.