Why Study Abnormal Psychology?

Psychology was my focus in college, and I worked through plenty of courses in the field. One class stuck with me more than any other, and it has turned out to be the most useful over the years: abnormal psychology. The whole course was built around mental anomalies and psychoses, and I found it impossible to look away from. Beyond teaching me about depression, antisocial personality disorder, and schizophrenia, it gave me ways to spot possible signs of mental illness in the people around me.

I took it during my junior year because my degree required it, and the subject pulled me in almost immediately. It gripped me to the point that I'd let my other classes slide, pouring hours into reading and digging through the material for that one course instead. Something else caught my attention too: how many of the people sitting in the room weren't psychology majors at all. English, education, even music majors had signed up, several of them just because the class sounded like it might be fun and fit as an elective.

A couple of years ago I ran into one of those classmates at a local bar and grill. A full decade had passed since graduation, and we got to talking about that course anyway. She directs a band at a middle school now, and she told me she's still glad she took it, because it helped her notice mental health problems in some of her students and sometimes in their parents too.

What drew me in, I think, was that abnormal psychology sits right at the center of what psychologists actually do. It explained why people struggling with mental health conditions have the difficulties they have, whether the root is a chemical imbalance that calls for medical treatment or a behavioral disorder that responds to therapy and changing habits.

I remember telling the professor how much the class meant to me and how absorbing I found it. He confessed that of everything he taught, abnormal psychology was his favorite too. He'd watched more students have the moment of realizing they'd picked the right major in that room than in any other class he ever ran.