In this chapter we shall see how stress may cause people to behave in ways which are undesirably different from the ways in which other people behave. In fact, some would propose that the phrase undesirable difference would serve as an adequate definition of the more common term ‘deviance’. The nature of deviance may be viewed from five different angles: (a) the freak, who exhibits abnormal physical, physiological, intellectual and mental qualities; (b) the sinful, who offends against either religious or secular ideologies; (c) the criminal, whose actions are unlawful; (d) the alienated, who turns against cultural and social values; (e) the pathological whose aberrant actions are the result of ‘breakdowns’ in mental health. It is this latter with which we are principally concerned.