Mental disorder and and normality are too ambiguous to distinguish between
“Mental disorder” and “normality” are both extremely protean concepts—each so amorphous, heterogeneous, and changeable in shape that we can never establish fixed boundaries between them. The definitions of mental disorder generally require the presence of distress, disability, dysfunction, dyscontrol, and/or disadvantage. This sounds better as alliteration than it works as operational guide. How much distress, disability, dysfunction, dyscontrol, and disadvantage must there be, and of what kind?
References
- Frances, Allen. (2013). Saving Normal CHAPTER 1. What’s Normal and What’s Not? (p. 31). New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Psychiatry / Philosophy / Semantics Status:☀️