The Normal and the Abnormal

We often judge mental health and disorder against a benchmark of what it is to be 'normal'. Critics argue though that this is a dangerous approach and what is normal is unknown. Cultures have often used mental illness to describe behaviour deemed unacceptable, which now strikes us as patently prejudiced and absurd. In 1851, American physician Samuel Cartwright coined the term 'drapetomania', a supposed mental illness causing enslaved African people to try to escape captivity. More widely for centuries women were diagnosed with hysteria. While today, studies from UCL and elsewhere suggest behaviours are being medicalised as depression or ADHD when they were previously part of a normal range of response.

Should we give up on the idea of normal, and see mental disorders not as illnesses, but as different ways of being in the world? Is normality a means to control the behaviour of others and should we change society to stop demonising the different? Or is it essential to identify abnormal behaviour so that we can help the individual concerned and protect society?

Mental health author and creative director Rose Cartwright, clinical psychologist Frank Tallis and professor of mental health Dinesh Bhughra debate mental health and the idea of normal.