EXCERPT: We use the term “normal” so casually and so often that it seems utterly…normal. But [...] Yale University neuroscientists Avram Holmes and Lauren Patrick argue we must move beyond the traditional concept of “normal” because it doesn’t exist—at least, not as a single, fixed entity. Instead, they contend, it represents a wide spectrum of healthy variability. They shed light on why this variability exists, and what it contributes to the process of evolution.
It’s a position that is increasingly embraced by cognitive neuroscientists, and it has clinical implications. The current assumption is mental pathology reflects a deviation from or disruption of “normal” behavior, which is in turn defined as the average behavior across the larger population; if you don’t behave like most people, then something’s gone wrong.
Consider depression. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, depression is defined by a constellation of symptoms [...] The systematic lumping of non-normal behaviors into a discrete diagnosis gives the impression mental illness is a cognitive stepping out of bounds—that the mind has broken and requires fixing. This concept of a fixed “normal,” Holmes and Patrick argue, is an erroneous and unrealistic (could one say “unhealthy”?) misconception that doesn’t reflect the healthy variation produced by evolution. Evolution, they maintain, doesn’t converge on a stable “healthy”—or even a narrow range of healthy values within a given trait. Instead, there is a large range of healthy variability that depends greatly on the environment. And environments are rarely stable....
There's a drugmaker and therapeutic industry which relies upon such diagnostic propaganda in an arguably narrow range of what constitutes "healthy" -- promoting the concepts and distinctions of some standard as globally real or valid.
Data-driven sciences seem to seek and extract generalizations and predictive universal rules immune or less vulnerable to mutable empirical circumstances. So as to the avoid what otherwise would be the incredible time consumption and cost of treating specific individuals in the context of their potentially unique / varying lifestyles and environmental situations.
Which is to say, The rationalist side of sci-tech intervention may want you abiding in its abstract world, not the contingent one as experientially encountered on a personal basis.
“Everyone's on the cliff edge of normal. Everyone finds life an utter nightmare sometimes, and there's no 'normal' way of dealing with it... There is no normal, Evelyn.”
― Holly Bourne, Am I Normal Yet?
I'm weird in so many ways I like to taunt myself with the ideal of normalcy. You know, the brick house in the surburbs with the 2 cars and the 2.5 kids. What if..what if? But who am I kidding? Glamorous well-manicured neighborhoods almost bleed dysfunctionality the moment the sun sets.
"Instead, there is a large range of healthy variability that depends greatly on the environment. And environments are rarely stable.... "
That means that "normal" mental health isn't so much a factor of evolutionary variability as it is environment. And this attempt to ignore normal, average behavior across a population seems to be more postmodern, relativistic, and unscientific nonsense.
(May 16, 2018 06:49 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: The ability to blend in while reflecting the madness of normality is a truly admirable feat.
Indeed!
"The systematic lumping of non-normal behaviors into a discrete diagnosis gives the impression mental illness is a cognitive stepping out of bounds—that the mind has broken and requires fixing. This concept of a fixed “normal,” Holmes and Patrick argue, is an erroneous and unrealistic (could one say “unhealthy”?) misconception that doesn’t reflect the healthy variation produced by evolution.
Evolution, they maintain, doesn’t converge on a stable “healthy”—or even a narrow range of healthy values within a given trait. Instead, there is a large range of healthy variability that depends greatly on the environment. And environments are rarely stable."
I stepped out of bounds once—broke free from my comfort zone. To do something strange—something you wouldn't normally do.
That’s how I stumbled onto that old stomping ground. That’s how I ended up here.
It’s a funny little story. Does anyone want to hear it?
(May 16, 2018 06:49 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: The ability to blend in while reflecting the madness of normality is a truly admirable feat.
Indeed!
"The systematic lumping of non-normal behaviors into a discrete diagnosis gives the impression mental illness is a cognitive stepping out of bounds—that the mind has broken and requires fixing. This concept of a fixed “normal,” Holmes and Patrick argue, is an erroneous and unrealistic (could one say “unhealthy”?) misconception that doesn’t reflect the healthy variation produced by evolution.
Evolution, they maintain, doesn’t converge on a stable “healthy”—or even a narrow range of healthy values within a given trait. Instead, there is a large range of healthy variability that depends greatly on the environment. And environments are rarely stable."
I stepped out of bounds once—broke free from my comfort zone. To do something strange—something you wouldn't normally do.
That’s how I stumbled onto that old stomping ground. That’s how I ended up here.
It’s a funny little story. Does anyone want to hear it?
(May 16, 2018 06:49 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: The ability to blend in while reflecting the madness of normality is a truly admirable feat.
Indeed!
"The systematic lumping of non-normal behaviors into a discrete diagnosis gives the impression mental illness is a cognitive stepping out of bounds—that the mind has broken and requires fixing. This concept of a fixed “normal,” Holmes and Patrick argue, is an erroneous and unrealistic (could one say “unhealthy”?) misconception that doesn’t reflect the healthy variation produced by evolution.
Evolution, they maintain, doesn’t converge on a stable “healthy”—or even a narrow range of healthy values within a given trait. Instead, there is a large range of healthy variability that depends greatly on the environment. And environments are rarely stable."
I stepped out of bounds once—broke free from my comfort zone. To do something strange—something you wouldn't normally do.
That’s how I stumbled onto that old stomping ground. That’s how I ended up here.
It’s a funny little story. Does anyone want to hear it?
Explain away.
Respected members only, though, okay? That is assuming, of course, that everyone is a respected member.
(May 16, 2018 06:49 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: The ability to blend in while reflecting the madness of normality is a truly admirable feat.
Indeed!
"The systematic lumping of non-normal behaviors into a discrete diagnosis gives the impression mental illness is a cognitive stepping out of bounds—that the mind has broken and requires fixing. This concept of a fixed “normal,” Holmes and Patrick argue, is an erroneous and unrealistic (could one say “unhealthy”?) misconception that doesn’t reflect the healthy variation produced by evolution.
Evolution, they maintain, doesn’t converge on a stable “healthy”—or even a narrow range of healthy values within a given trait. Instead, there is a large range of healthy variability that depends greatly on the environment. And environments are rarely stable."
I stepped out of bounds once—broke free from my comfort zone. To do something strange—something you wouldn't normally do.
That’s how I stumbled onto that old stomping ground. That’s how I ended up here.
It’s a funny little story. Does anyone want to hear it?
Explain away.
Respected members only, though, okay? That is assuming, of course, that everyone is a respected member.
(May 16, 2018 06:49 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: The ability to blend in while reflecting the madness of normality is a truly admirable feat.
Indeed!
"The systematic lumping of non-normal behaviors into a discrete diagnosis gives the impression mental illness is a cognitive stepping out of bounds—that the mind has broken and requires fixing. This concept of a fixed “normal,” Holmes and Patrick argue, is an erroneous and unrealistic (could one say “unhealthy”?) misconception that doesn’t reflect the healthy variation produced by evolution.
Evolution, they maintain, doesn’t converge on a stable “healthy”—or even a narrow range of healthy values within a given trait. Instead, there is a large range of healthy variability that depends greatly on the environment. And environments are rarely stable."
I stepped out of bounds once—broke free from my comfort zone. To do something strange—something you wouldn't normally do.
That’s how I stumbled onto that old stomping ground. That’s how I ended up here.
It’s a funny little story. Does anyone want to hear it?
Explain away.
Respected members only, though, okay? That is assuming, of course, that everyone is a respected member.
May 16, 2018 04:08 PM
(This post was last modified: May 16, 2018 04:17 PM by C C.)
![[Image: image.jpg]](https://static.businessinsider.com/image/561bcf71bd86ef175c8b5f72/image.jpg)
