[3] As applied to humans, abnormality may also encompass deviance, which refers to behavior that is considered to transgress social norms.
[5] A psychological disorder is defined as an "ongoing dysfunctional pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior that causes significant distress, and is considered deviant in that person's culture or society".
A mental disorder describes a patient who has a medical condition whereby the medical practitioner makes a judgment that the patient is exhibiting abnormal behavior based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria.
For example, psychologists would be prepared to define an individual's behavior as "abnormal" if the following criteria are met: A good example of an abnormal behavior assessed by a multi-criteria approach is depression: it is commonly seen as a deviation from ideal mental stability, it often stops the individual from 'functioning' in normal life, and, although it is a relatively common mental disorder, it is still statistically infrequent.
After activist movements and examination within the APA, it was replaced with sexual orientation disturbance, then eventually completely removed from the DSM.
[17] This may not imply that the behavior is dysfunctional or undesirable, however--it may simply mean that what is being observed is statistically deviant in a social or cultural context.
This is commonly seen in individuals such as Nobel Prize winners, geniuses, professional athletes, and extremely creative people.