The concept of Normality? It is often and indiscriminately used in our society. On several occasions we hear that certain things or behaviors are or are not normal. Now, when we try to define the idea of normality, the problem becomes more complicated. It’s hard, to define what’s normal and what’s pathological, strange or weird.
A really dangerous aspect of the concept of normality is the associated connotations, as it is often used as an indicator of what is right and what is not correct. When we classify a behavior or thing as abnormal, it is often followed by negative prejudices. it is partly due to a misconception of normality, to the disrecognisement of the depth of the term. For this reason, it is important to understand what “normal” means.
- An easy way to address the term is the opposite of normality.
- I.
- E.
- Pathological.
- Understanding these processes and behaviors that are not normal will help us define it.
- So the first definition we will address is the definition of pathological.
The definition of pathological has always been complicated for psychology because of the complexity of defining its criteria; It also has the added difficulty of knowing what to do with the strange or the abnormal. A debate still in psychology training is what it should be. considered susceptible to diagnosis or therapy. We talk about which pathological behaviors should be addressed and which should not, what criteria should be followed?
To define pathology or the abnormal in psychology four different criteria are usually used, an important aspect is that it is not necessary to meet all the criteria for something to be considered abnormal, the right thing to do is to understand it as 4 dimensions. who get a score in different ways qualitatively.
The four criteria are
The criteria discussed above are useful for diagnosing and treating disorders in clinical psychology, however, we can see that they are of little use in actually deepening the sense of normality, although they are useful for understanding or addressing our notion of the strange or abnormal. .
Socio-structuralism can help us understand the concept of normality, from this point of view it is understood that all knowledge is built through the interaction of the individual with society and its environment, normality would be another idea incorporated into the structure of this interaction.
This means that normal can never be treated with a decontextualized objectivity of social intersubjectivity, that is, we will not be able to talk about normality in general, but normality within a specific society, which in turn implies that the criteria we use Define the pathological do not matter, because everything falls within the social concept of the strange or abnormal. The view we describe gives us an interesting and curious look at the study of the normal and may involve an ethical and moral debate.
Anything we consider strange and abnormal does not need to be associated with a problematic or negative disposition of the individual who performs this abnormal behavior, in reality society would be one that excludes behaviors, ideas or characteristics, classifying them as strange or abnormal. To a large extent, this explains, for example, the great variability recorded in the behaviors, acts and feelings in the drawer of normality and anomaly throughout history, for example, centuries ago, it was normal and legitimate to kill a person if his pride was wounded. , today we consider it strange and immoral.
Thus, we could say that normality is a social construct that encompasses behaviors, ideas and characteristics that adapt to life in society, is a mode of self-regulation on which society relies, so psychology adopts paradigms of disorders and disabilities based on functional diversity; Anomaly is generated by society and is not a characteristic of the individual.