Is abnormality normal? The current “Bible” of mental disorders is DSM-5, the fifth version of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. All the experts refer to it, but, if you are like me, just a layperson struggling with what it means to be human, you might be amazed to see the current count of disorders: Something like 297. Two-hundred ninety-seven disorders. That’s like one for everyone. Well, not quite, but spindle my neurons, that’s a big number. Choose your disorder or make one up.
Apparently, you could actually make one up. DSM-1 (Or I in Roman numerals), didn’t have as many disorders. We’re either learning as we go, or we missed or ignored many before. Maybe there’s another alternative: We’ve become so specialized that disorders have subdisorders, much the way geology, for example, has various disciplines in mineralogy, petrology, sedimentology, structure, paleontology, history, geomorphology, and a few more, all with their own subcategories of subjects.
Oh! The Humanity. Really. Think about having a disorder for almost every behavior. No wonder we can’t define normal. And if we can’t define normal except in having some general notion about what it means to act “normally,” then shouldn’t all of us fall somewhere in the list, either old or developing, of “disorders”? Things were so much simpler when we just relied on shorter lists, such as the Seven Deadly Sins, the Ten Commandments, and various codes (Hammurabi’s, Napoleon’s, the Bill of Rights).
So, you must have some sense of what is normal, but you must also have some sense that your “normal” isn’t necessarily someone else’s “normal.” And dividing and dividing and dividing in one subcategory after another doesn’t seem to do anything other than separate us into smaller and smaller groups with our own peculiar “normality” or “abnormality.” And that’s just within a single culture unit like Western Civilization though the DSM people would probably argue that they deal in disorders (and orders) that apply universally. Except. Except that all cultures define “normality” in their historical context, and that includes long religious, philosophical, and political traditions.
Nevertheless, the effort to find “universal” disorders is probably worth the effort. In their discovery, such disorders probably unite us in some way. It’s just that the unification of humanity on the basis of disorders that occur in every culture is a rather negative approach to our supposed commonality.
Time for you to make your positive list of what unites us in this group called humanity. And when you finish—hopefully without having to go through five versions like the DSM—please share it. I, for one, am curious about what is “normal.”
Apparently, you could actually make one up. DSM-1 (Or I in Roman numerals), didn’t have as many disorders. We’re either learning as we go, or we missed or ignored many before. Maybe there’s another alternative: We’ve become so specialized that disorders have subdisorders, much the way geology, for example, has various disciplines in mineralogy, petrology, sedimentology, structure, paleontology, history, geomorphology, and a few more, all with their own subcategories of subjects.
Oh! The Humanity. Really. Think about having a disorder for almost every behavior. No wonder we can’t define normal. And if we can’t define normal except in having some general notion about what it means to act “normally,” then shouldn’t all of us fall somewhere in the list, either old or developing, of “disorders”? Things were so much simpler when we just relied on shorter lists, such as the Seven Deadly Sins, the Ten Commandments, and various codes (Hammurabi’s, Napoleon’s, the Bill of Rights).
So, you must have some sense of what is normal, but you must also have some sense that your “normal” isn’t necessarily someone else’s “normal.” And dividing and dividing and dividing in one subcategory after another doesn’t seem to do anything other than separate us into smaller and smaller groups with our own peculiar “normality” or “abnormality.” And that’s just within a single culture unit like Western Civilization though the DSM people would probably argue that they deal in disorders (and orders) that apply universally. Except. Except that all cultures define “normality” in their historical context, and that includes long religious, philosophical, and political traditions.
Nevertheless, the effort to find “universal” disorders is probably worth the effort. In their discovery, such disorders probably unite us in some way. It’s just that the unification of humanity on the basis of disorders that occur in every culture is a rather negative approach to our supposed commonality.
Time for you to make your positive list of what unites us in this group called humanity. And when you finish—hopefully without having to go through five versions like the DSM—please share it. I, for one, am curious about what is “normal.”
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