For this week's reading, I read
I WOULD ALWAYS R ATHER BE ABNORMAL THAN HOLISTIC: NINE MICRO-ESSAYS by Shana Bulhan Haydock. In the essays by Haydock, I saw discussions of what is considered "normal" in the field of mental health, and why the author choose not to be normal. The word "normal" is artificially defined and only represent that someone is like others, and not being "normal" does not mean to be a bad thing. This idea reminds me that historically, homosexuality was also considered a mental disorder, and after many years the public admitted that it is not. Many people, including the famous computer scientist Alan Turing, received non-humane "treatments" like the use of hormone. Now, is there something still consider "abnormal" in mental health but is actually not? The author also mentioned the ‘drug ’em up and shut ’em up’ treatments used by doctors, that they are just making people calm and look like "normal". I remember that there were treatments of mental illness such as cutting a part of people's brain and remove any emotion from them. Such treatments are super wrong in the modern perspective, but how about the treatments used now? I think we should think about what is really "normal" in mental health, if there ever exists one.
Question: Is there any definition of mentally normal medically?
Reference:
Haydock, S. B. (n.d.). I Would Always Rather be Abnormal Than Holistic: Nine Micro-Essays. DSM: Asian American Edition.
http://www.tpr.org/post/how-can-we-change-minds-about-mental-health
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