Personality disorders are dysfunctions of our entire identity, cracks in the fabric of who we are. They are all-pervading because our personality is omnipresent and permeates every one of our mental cells. I have just published the first article on this topic called "What is Personality?". Read it to understand the subtle differences between 'personality', 'character' and 'temperament'.
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The underlying question is: what constitutes normal behavior? who is normal
2.
There is a statistical answer: average and common are normal. But it is unsatisfactory and incomplete. Conforming to social norms and customs does not guarantee normality. Think of anomic societies and historical periods like Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia. Model citizens in these hellish environments were criminals and sadists.
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Rather than looking outward for a clear definition, many mental health professionals ask: is the patient functional and happy (ego-syntonic)? If it is both, then everything is fine and normal. Abnormal traits, behaviors, and personalities are therefore defined as those traits, behaviors, and personalities that are dysfunctional and cause subjective distress.
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But of course it falls flat on the slightest examination. Many apparently mentally ill people are rather happy and reasonably functional.
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Some scholars reject the concept of "normality" altogether. The anti-psychiatry movement opposes the medicalization and pathologization of entire areas of human behavior. Others prefer to study the disorders themselves rather than "malphysically" trying to distinguish them from an imaginary and ideal state of "mentally healthy".
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I join later access. I much prefer to delve into the phenomenology of mental health disorders: their features, characteristics, and impact on others.
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What is normal when it comes to human behavior? An analysis of how mental health professionals and other groups view normal behavior.
8.
Personality disorders are dysfunctions of our entire identity, cracks in the fabric of who we are. They are all-pervading because our personality is omnipresent and permeates every one of our mental cells. I have just published the first article on this topic called "What is Personality?". Read it to understand the subtle differences between 'personality', 'character' and 'temperament'.
9.
The underlying question is: what constitutes normal behavior? who is normal
There is a statistical answer: average and common are normal. But it is unsatisfactory and incomplete. Conforming to social norms and customs does not guarantee normalcy. Think of anomic societies and historical periods like Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia. Model citizens in these hellish environments were criminals and sadists.
10.
Rather than looking outward for a clear definition, many mental health professionals ask: is the patient functional and happy (ego-syntonic)? If it is both, then everything is fine and normal. Abnormal traits, behaviors, and personalities are therefore defined as those traits, behaviors, and personalities that are dysfunctional and cause subjective distress.
But of course it falls flat on the slightest examination. Many apparently mentally ill people are rather happy and reasonably functional.
11.
Some scholars reject the concept of "normality" altogether. The anti-psychiatry movement opposes the medicalization and pathologization of entire areas of human behavior. Others prefer to study the disorders themselves rather than "get metaphysical" in an attempt to distinguish them from the imaginary and ideal state of being "mentally healthy".
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