Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health - by Steven Bartlett (Hardcover)

About the Book

How do you define good mental health? This controversial, counterintuitive, and altogether fascinating book argues that 'psychological normality' is neither a desirable nor an acceptable standard.
Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health: The Need to Look Elsewhere for Standards of Good Psychological Health is a groundbreaking work, the first book-length study to question the equation of psychological normality and mental health. Its author, Dr. Steven James Bartlett, musters compelling evidence and careful analysis to challenge the paradigm accepted by mental health theorists and practitioners, a paradigm that is not only wrong, but can be damaging to those to whom it is applied--and to society as a whole.

In this bold, multidisciplinary work, Bartlett critiques the presumed standard of normality that permeates contemporary consciousness. Showing that the current concept of mental illness is fundamentally unacceptable because it is scientifically unfounded and the result of flawed thinking, he argues that adherence to the gold standard of psychological normality leads to nothing less than cultural impoverishment.

• Multiple descriptive examples of ways in which the equation of psychological normality with good mental health leads us astray
• An account of the principal contributors who have urged that psychological normality is not a desirable or justifiable standard of good mental health
• A historical account of the main psychological factors that have led to our current failing model and practice of higher education

Book Synopsis

How do you define good mental health? This controversial, counterintuitive, and altogether fascinating book argues that "psychological normality" is neither a desirable nor an acceptable standard.

Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health: The Need to Look Elsewhere for Standards of Good Psychological Health is a groundbreaking work, the first book-length study to question the equation of psychological normality and mental health. Its author, Dr. Steven James Bartlett, musters compelling evidence and careful analysis to challenge the paradigm accepted by mental health theorists and practitioners, a paradigm that is not only wrong, but can be damaging to those to whom it is applied--and to society as a whole.

In this bold, multidisciplinary work, Bartlett critiques the presumed standard of normality that permeates contemporary consciousness. Showing that the current concept of mental illness is fundamentally unacceptable because it is scientifically unfounded and the result of flawed thinking, he argues that adherence to the gold standard of psychological normality leads to nothing less than cultural impoverishment.

Review Quotes

"Well-written and clearly structured. . . . I wish everyone would read Bartlett's chapter in Normality on the abuses of peer review and editorial bias (Chapter 7) and adopt his proposed code of conduct for peer reviewers and editors (p. 172). And Bartlett's treatment of relativism, the relativity of frameworks, and human evil in Pathology is absolutely limpid (Chapter 20)." --PsycCRITIQUES

About the Author

Steven James Bartlett, PhD, is visiting scholar in psychology at Willamette University, Salem, OR; is senior research professor at Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR; and has published 14 books and monographs and numerous papers in the fields of psychology and epistemology.