Definition
Disruptive behaviors are behaviors breaking valued social practices. While people engaging in some forms of disruptive behaviors may be seen as admirable (e.g., M.L. King, Jr.), others are seen as problematic. Prototypical examples of problematic disruptive behaviors (PDB) may range from unwarranted forms of protest to unreasonable opposition to authorities, to harming or abusing others. A traditional narrative used to account for PDB invokes an underlying dysfunction/pathology in an individual, called a “mental disorder.” Alternatively, and drawing from the capabilities approach to human development (Nussbaum 2011), PDB can be understood as reflecting affiliation discapabilities,a term we use to indicate a shortage in individuals’ culturally expected ability to relate to others meaningfully and respectfully (i.e., affiliation capabilities), as the result of current and/or past adverse social environments amounting to socially unjust conditions (or situations of nonequal...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
This vignette represents a prototypical case informed by our own clinical practice but does not correspond to any actual case.
- 2.
As we discussed earlier, “social deviant behaviors” are not considered mental disorders “unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual” (APA 2013, p. 20). To retain validity (over reliability) of the concept, “dysfunction” here must be defined in bio/evolutionist terms (Wakefield 1992a). Of course, such restrictive view may be at odds with how DSM-5 users may understand mental disorders (e.g., as interpretable phenomena; see also Strong 2017).
References
Adams, R. (2013). Raising Henry: A memoir of motherhood, disability, and discovery. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
APA (American Psychiatric Association). (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., Text Revision). Washington, DC: Author.
APA (American Psychiatric Association). (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence: An essay on psychology and religion. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Bickenbach, J. E. (2013). The international classification of functioning, disability and health and its relationship to disability studies. In N. Watson, A. Roulstone, & C. Thomas (Eds.), Routledge handbook of disability studies (pp. 51–66). New York: Routledge.
Bolton, D. (2001). Problems in the definition of ‘mental disorder’. The Philosophical Quarterly, 51(203), 182–199. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0031-8094.2001.00223.x.
Bowden, G. (2014). The merit of sociological accounts of disorder: The attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder case. Health, 18, 422–438.
Brinkmann, S. (2016). Toward a cultural psychology of mental disorder: The case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Culture & Psychology, 22(1), 80–93.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32(7), 513.
Church, J. (2004). Social constructionist models: Making order out of disorder – On the social construction of madness. In J. Radden (Ed.), The philosophy of psychiatry (pp. 393–406). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Conger, R. D., & Donnellan, M. B. (2007). An interactionist perspective on the socioeconomic context of human development. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 175–199. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085551.
Disrupt. (n.d.). In Online etymology dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.etymonline.com/word/disrupt
Dworkin, R. (1981). What is equality? Part 2: Equality of resources. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 10(4), 283–345.
Ettekal, I., Eiden, R. D., Nickerson, A. B., Molnar, D. S., & Schuetze, P. (2019). Developmental cascades to children’s conduct problems: The role of prenatal substance use, socioeconomic adversity, maternal depression and sensitivity, and children’s conscience. Development and Psychopathology, 1–19 (ahead of print). https://doi.org/10.1017/S095457941800144X
Ferguson, P. M. (2019). The future of “disability:” the evolution of the concept and the experience. Focus on Exceptional Children, 46(1), 1–13.
Fraser, N. (2001). Recognition without ethics? Theory, Culture and Society, 18(2–3), 21–42.
Gaete, A. (2008). The concept of mental disorder: A proposal. Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology, 15(4), 327–339.
Gaete, A., & Gaete, J. (2015). On theoretical integration in psychotherapy. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 25(2), 158–174.
Gaete, A., & Luna, L. (2019). Educación inclusiva y democracia [Inclusive education and democracy]. Fuentes, 21(2), 161–175.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. New York: Doubleday.
Huber, L., Plötner, M., & Schmitz, J. (2019). Social competence and psychopathology in early childhood: A systematic review. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 28(4), 443–459.
Huijsmans, T., Nivette, A. E., Eisner, M., & Ribeaud, D. (2019). Social influences, peer delinquency, and low self-control: An examination of time-varying and reciprocal effects on delinquency over adolescence. European Journal of Criminology, 1–21 (ahead of print). https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370819838720.
Kendell, R. E. (1975). The concept of disease and its implications for psychiatry. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 127(4), 305–315.
Kendell, R. E. (2001). The distinction between physical and mental illness. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 178, 490–493.
Kochanska, G., Coy, K. C., & Murray, K. T. (2001). The development of self-regulation in the first four years of life. Child Development, 72, 1091–1111.
Link, B. G., & Phelan, J. C. (2014). Mental illness stigma and the sociology of mentalhealth. In R. J. Robert, R. J. Turner, & B. G. Link (Eds.), Sociology of mentalhealth: Selected topics from forty years, 1970s–2010s (pp. 75–100). New York: Springer Science + Business Media.
Marsella, A. J., & White, G. (2012). Cultural conceptions of mental health and therapy (Vol. 4). New York, NY: Springer.
Masten, A. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2010). Developmental cascades. Development and Psychopathology, 22(3), 491–495.
Mudry, T., Strong, T., Sametband, I., Rogers-de Jong, M., Gaete, J., Merrit, S.; Doyle, E.; Ross, K. (2015). Internalized Other Interviewing in relational therapy: Three discursive approaches to understanding its use and outcomes. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 42(1), 168–184. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12110
Nussbaum, M. C. (2001). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Nussbaum, M. (2007). Human rights and human capabilities. Harv Hum Rts J 20, 20–24.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2011). Creating capabilities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rashed, M. A. (2013). Culture, salience, and psychiatric diagnosis: Exploring the concept of cultural congruence & its practical application. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 8(1), 5.
Rose-Krasnor, L. (1997). The nature of social competence: A theoretical review. Social Development, 6(1), 111–135. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.1997.tb00097.x.
Sampson, E. E. (1993). Identity politics: Challenges to psychology’s understanding. American Psychologist, 48(12), 1219.
Seikkula, J. (2019). Psychosis is not illness but a survival strategy in severe stress: A proposal for an addition to a phenomenological point of view. Psychopathology, 52(2), 143–150.
Sen, A. (2005). Human rights and capabilities. Journal of Human Development, 6(2), 151–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649880500120491.
Strong, T. (2017). Medicalizing counselling: Issues and tensions. New York: Springer.
Taylor, C. (1985). The concept of a person. In Human agency and language: Philosophical papers (Vol. 1, pp. 97–114). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, C. (1995). Philosophical arguments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Taylor, C. (1994). The politics of recognition. In A. Gutmann (Ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining the politics of recognition (pp. 25–75). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
UN (United Nations). (2006). Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and optional protocol. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-e.pdf
Wakefield, J. (1992a). Disorder as harmful dysfunction: A conceptual critique of DSM-III-R’s definition of mental disorder. Psychological Review, 99(2), 232–247.
Wakefield, J. (1992b). The concept of mental disorder. On the boundary between biological facts and social values. The American Psychologist, 47(3), 373–388.
WHO (World Health Organization). (2004). Promoting mental health: concepts, emerging evidence, practice (Summary Report). Geneva: World Health Organization.
WHO and The World Bank. (2011). World report on disability. World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44575/9789240685215_eng.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Appendix A
Appendix A
See Figure 1.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Gaete, J., Gaete, A. (2021). Disruptive Behaviors: A Capabilities Approach. In: Lester, J.N., O'Reilly, M. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Critical Perspectives on Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12852-4_49-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12852-4_49-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-12852-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-12852-4
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences