What is Normal? What Abnormal or Disordered?

From high-school onward, the question of what constitutes "normal" has been a perennial one for me, made all the more acute now by entering into the world of psychology and psychiatry and being immersed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th. ed. For a book that trumpets in its very title the notion of "disorder," it is strikingly silent when it comes to offering any kind of substantial or useful definition of what an ordered life is. And that is probably as it should be. 

Nevertheless, the question perdures, and early next year will be given fresh treatment in a book I'm looking forward to reading: Roz Carroll and Jane Ryan, eds., What is Normal? Psychotherapists Explore the Question (Confer Books, 2021), 208pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

Many people strive to be normal, and deviation from accepted norms can feel like failure. But why do we want to be normal? And what does that mean? Ordinary? Sane? Similar? When probed, the notion of normality starts to look fragile. It is not clear who decides what being normal means or who is entitled to say. Nonetheless, concerns about conforming and being accepted are deeply pervasive. With an extraordinary diversity of perspectives, the authors featured in this collection – all psychotherapists – use biographical accounts, political analyses and clinical vignettes to challenge the concept of normality. Through these stories and discussions, it emerges that our very uniqueness, oddness and differences as individuals are what make us fully human. At a time of rapid social change, the freedom to be oneself – whatever form that takes – is at the core of contemporary debate, and this volume makes a vital contribution to that project.