The question of mental normality and abnormality is an important one, both for the general public and for psychologists or psychiatrists. Psychological knowledge tells us only what the normal human psyche is, and also the individual differences in the normal psyche. However, to what extent are such differences abnormal. In addition, a large number of normal people have mild depression, anxiety and other symptoms of neurosis.
Therefore, the so-called normal mental is not without a little problem. Then, a person’s self-perception also cannot be used as a criterion for whether he or she is mentally normal. For example, a patient with mania has no doubt that his or her mental state is abnormal despite a very good self-perception. So far, although normal and abnormal are very commonly used terms, there is no accepted and easy way to accurately and clearly determine whether a person’s mental state is normal or not.
I. Overview of normal state
1. The definition of health by the World Health Organization (WHO)
Health is not only the absence of disease, but also a state of feeling good in mental, physical and social life.
However, it is not easy to evaluate how an individual feels good, i.e. to evaluate whether a person’s mental state is normal or not. There is a lack of clear definition of normal and abnormal, and a lack of clear boundaries between the two. In fact, different societies and cultures are inconsistent in their evaluation of normal and abnormal behavior. It is widely accepted that anyone whose behavior clearly deviates from the normal pattern is either a criminal or a psychopath.
For example, a person who despises material possessions, acts against convention or custom, and dresses and lives in his own way is usually said to be “crazy” or “weird”, and anyone who is obviously introverted, fantastical, or sexually different from normal life is usually It is often called “abnormal” or “pathological”.
2, the properties of the normal state
(1) Psychologists believe that the normal state should have three attributes.
① Statistically normal is in the middle majority.
(2) Does not have a psychiatric performance, even in a particular situation (tension, fear, expectation, anxiety), is also a transient, can quickly return to normal.
(3) The behavior is accepted by the society and culture in which it occurs.
(2) Maslaw (1951) delineated the following psychological criteria for normalcy.
①Adequate sense of security
(2) Maslaw (1951) defined the following psychological criteria for normalcy: ① Adequate sense of security; ② Adequate understanding of oneself and an appropriate evaluation of one’s own abilities.
③ Realistic goals in life.
④Maintain contact with the real environment.
⑤ Maintain integrity and harmony of personality.
⑥Has the ability to learn from experience.
(7) The ability to maintain good interpersonal relationships.
⑧ Moderate emotional outbursts and control.
⑨ Ability to make limited individuality to basic personal requirements without violating unity.
⑩Without violating the social norms, the basic requirements of the individual can be made to meet in an appropriate way.
(3) Different psychologists have a variety of views on the criteria of mental health, and we can summarize his basic connotation as the following.
(1) Having a normal level of intelligence.
(2) The ability to understand and accept oneself.
(3) The ability to establish harmonious relationships with others.
④good at regulating and controlling emotions.
⑤ Good ability to adapt to the environment.
Some of the phenomena that may occur in normal people
1. Neurotic-like phenomena
(1) Fatigue: some fatigue that normal people experience after working hard, reduced casual movement, reluctance to move, weakness and lack of grasp and accuracy of movement, reduced thinking activity, lack of creativity, scattered thinking and difficulty in concentration.
(2) Anxiety reaction: a way of reacting to some special circumstances in the environment when adapting normally and bringing unpleasant emotions in this way, but not to the point of recurrence.
(3) Hysteria-like phenomena.
(4) Obsessive-compulsive phenomena: healthy children in adolescence, superstitious behavior of adults, etc.
(5) Terror: terror at heights, etc.
(6)Hypochondriac phenomenon: some normal people have the tendency to have occurred hypochondriac, often concerned about their various sensations, and suspect that a certain organ may have problems.
2.Sexual behavior
(1) Masturbation.
(2)Homosexual tendency.
(3) Narcissism: focus on everything about themselves, a few men like to look in the mirror, but as long as it does not affect the daily life that is normal.
3, some similar to serious mental illness phenomenon
(1) Depression: normal people have fluctuations in their moods and biorhythmic changes in their daily lives.
(2) Irritability: varying degrees of irritability tendencies, and any recurrent and unpredictable stimuli can easily cause irritation. Normal irritability and anger generally undergo a latent period of gradually increasing tension, whereas pathologically irritable outbursts of impulsive behavior occur almost simultaneously with the stimulus or without any precipitating factors.
(3) Paranoia: The psychological mechanism of paranoid reactions is shirking (projection), and shirking is a prevalent interpersonal projection mechanism. Projection is progressive in the sense that, biologically, without self-implication, people lose affection for their environment, which is detrimental to human survival. Paranoia in normal people is transient, waking up after a moment of doubt, and this perception does not cause a corresponding change in behavior.
(4) Delusions: Normal people can experience delusions in mental states such as dim light, nervousness and fear, and strong expectations.
(5) Hallucinations: Children can have delusions and hallucinations before going to sleep.
4.Normal personality variation
Personality variation is common, such as some aspects of the personality is insufficient or too much can not be considered pathological. While pathological personality is a category of deep-rooted personality disorders developed from early childhood, their mental processes are uniformly impaired in all aspects, but not to the extent of psychosis.
III. Abnormal mental state
Abnormal mental states can also be called pathological. Like the normal state, the evaluation of abnormal mental state is also varied and lacks uniform standards. The essence of mental disorder is the ability of the individual whose mental symptoms are severely impaired.
1.Medical criteria: Mental disorder is a disease in which the functional activity of the brain is disturbed under the action of various internal and external pathogenic factors, resulting in different degrees of impairment of mental activities such as cognition, emotion and behavior will.
2.Sociological criteria.
(1) Non-constructive suffering: that is, one’s suffering is of no value to society, and the patient is stuck in suffering for a long time without doing anything.
(2) Impaired social function: Social function includes
①The ability to take care of oneself.
②The ability of interpersonal communication.
(3) The ability to work, live and study.
④ Ability to comply with social norms.
3. Comprehensive overview of the literature
(1) Mental disorders are broadly defined as requiring psychiatric treatment.
(2) Mental illness is equivalent to maladjustment, and mental illness is accompanied by maladjustment, while maladjustment is not necessarily always pathological.
(3) A diagnosis can be made using the diagnostic criteria for mental illness.
(4) Mental illness can be indicated by objective psychological tests, but only for reference.
(5) Based on subjective symptoms: such as the patient’s complaints of mental discomfort, unpleasantness, and need for help. However, there are many patients who will not actively describe mental problems, not to mention that most psychiatric patients have no self-awareness.
4. Practical clinical criteria
(1) Abnormal performance of mental activity. The general judgment can be based on the difference between the patient’s performance and the normal people around (horizontal judgment), and whether the patient’s performance has changed significantly from the patient’s previous performance (vertical judgment).
(2) Those who meet one of the following two criteria.
(1) The manifestation makes the person himself or herself feel the need for treatment or correction (he or she feels distressed and it affects the social function of the person).
(2) The manifestation causes people around the person to feel that treatment measures are necessary.