General Psychology 1010 CUNY KCC General Psychology 1001

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nyzvenf05

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CUNY Kingsborough Community College

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After reading the article attached please answer the following questions.

Identify two of the examples that the author describes as problems with the word "Normal"?

What does the author suggest as an alternative to labeling things as "normal"?

Finally, do you think that there is such a thing as a "normal" person? Why or why not?

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What Do We Mean by 'Normal'? It is time to rethink 'normal' and 'abnormal' Posted Nov 15, 2011 It is past time that we rethink what we mean by the words "normal" and "abnormal" as those words apply to the mental and emotional states and behaviors of human beings. Indeed, it is a real question as to whether those words can be sensibly used at all, given their tremendous baggage and built-in biases and the general confusion they create. This is not an idle question without real-world consequences. The "treatment" of every single "mental disorder" that mental health professionals "diagnose," from "depression" and "attention deficit disorder" on through "schizophrenia," flows from how society construes "normal" and "abnormal." This matter affects tens of millions of people annually; and affects everyone, really, since a person's mental model of "what is normal?" is tremendously influenced by how society and its institutions define "normal." The matter of what is normal can't be and must not be a mere statistical nicety. It can't be and must not be "normal" to be a Christian just because 95% of your community is Christian. It can't be and must not be "normal" to be attracted to someone of the opposite sex just because 90% of the general population is heterosexual. It can't be and must not be "normal" to own slaves just because all the landowners in your state own slaves. "Normal" can't mean and must not mean "what we see all the time" or "what we see the most of." It must have a different meaning from that for it to mean anything of value to right-thinking people. Nor can it mean "free of discomfort," as if "normal" were the equivalent of oblivious and you were somehow "abnormal" when you were sentient, human, and real. This, however, is exactly the game played by the mental health industry: it makes this precise, illegitimate switch. It announces that when you feel a certain level of discomfort you are abnormal and you have a disorder. It equates abnormal with unwanted, turning "I don't want to feel sad" into "I have the mental disorder of depression." In this view "normal" is living free of excessive discomfort; "abnormal" is feeling or acting significantly distressed. Normal, in this view, is destroying a village in wartime and not experiencing anything afterward; abnormal is experiencing something, and for a long time thereafter. The consequences of conscience, reason, and awareness are labeled abnormal and robotic allegiance to wearing a pasted-on smiley face is designated normal. Is that what we really mean? Is that what we really want? Sadness, guilt, rage, disappointment, confusion, doubt, anxiety and other similar experiences and states are all expected and normal, given the nature and demands of life; except, that is, to mental health professionals, where those states and experiences become markers of abnormality and cash cows. It is simply not right to call the absence of significant distress normal and the presence of significant distress abnormal: that just isn't right. If "normal" mustn't be "what we see the most of" or "the absence of significant distress," how else might it be conceptualized or construed? Is there perhaps a way that the words "healthy" and "unhealthy" capture what we might like "normal" and "abnormal" to mean? Perhaps "normal" could equal "healthy" and "abnormal" could equal "unhealthy"? Unfortunately, that emperor is also naked. It is reasonable to say that if you contract tuberculosis or manifest cancer you have gone from a healthier state to an unhealthier state. But it is not reasonable to say, for instance, that it is "healthy" for you to suffer no ill affects from killing unarmed civilians and "unhealthy" of you to experience distressing consequences. Yes, in the latter case you are suffering; but PTSD in this instance is not like cancer. In this case it may in fact amount to the healthy (and nevertheless extremely distressing) functioning of your conscience. This PTSD may in fact be proof that you are healthy, proof, that is, that you are a person with a functioning conscience, rather than proof of any "unhealthiness."
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Attached.

Identify two of the examples that the author describes as problems with the word
"Normal"?
The first problem the author identifies is the use of the word normal in the mental
health industry. Certain levels of discomfort or distress are expected in human life. However,
in the mental health industry it appears that any level of unwanted emotion is deemed
abnormal and is a diagnosable problem. Calling feeling no distress ever normal says to us that
having any feelings or emotio...