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can heavily influence whether it gets labeled by others as normal or abnormal.
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In the field of clinical psychology we have a number of different ways,
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kind of heuristics that we use to label things
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as abnormal or unhealthy or troubling.
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And three of these characteristics are what we often call the three Ds:
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distress, dysfunction, and deviance. So, behaviors that cause the individual
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or others significant distress often get labeled as abnormal or unhealthy.
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Depression is a prime example, as we'll see when we talk about
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the characteristics of it. It's a miserable state of being;
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you're unhappy, you're sad, you may even feel so badly you want to kill yourself.
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And that very, very high level of distress
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is part of the reason why it's labeled as a mental disorder.