Steven Bartlett

Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health

The Need to Look Elsewhere for Standards of Good Psychological Health

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

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.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Praeger
• Seitenzahl: 336
• Erscheinungstermin: 12. September 2011
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 240mm x 161mm x 23mm
• Gewicht: 669g
• ISBN-13: 9780313399312
• ISBN-10: 031339931X
• Artikelnr.: 33375152

Autorenporträt

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.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface Acknowledgments A Note on Conventions Introduction Part I.
Normality and Mental Health Chapter 1. Questioning the Standard of
Normality: Steps to a More Effective Understanding of Mental Health From
the "Banality of Evil" to the "Evil of Banality" The Dispositional
Pathology of Psychological Normality Psychological Normality Is Not Mental
Health Positive Illusion and Resistance to the Pathology of Normality Where
We Might Go from Here Toward a More Effective Understanding of Mental
Health Mental Health as Exception to the Rule A Preliminary Conclusion
Chapter 2. The Psychology of Definition in Psychiatric Nosology The Need
for a Psychology of Definition The Purposes of Definition in Psychiatric
Nosologies Stipulative Definitions as Sources of Authority Real Definition
and Reification Defining Mental Disorders into Existence The Dysfunctional
Nature of the Psychology of Definition Choices in the Interpretation and
Recognition of Disease: Physical Pathology and Mental Disorder The
Psychology of Symptom Clustering Psychiatry's Inflationary Ontology The
Concept of Mental Illness Is No Myth but the Result of Dysfunctional
Thought The Psychology of Resistance to Idiopathic Disease Do Internal
Malfunctions or Dysfunctions Underlie Psychiatric Syndromes? The Psychology
of Definition and Claims to Truth The Next Step in Reification Intelligent
Science and Stopgap Definitions To Summarize Is Nosology Essential to
Effective Clinical Practice? Chapter 3. The Abnormal Psychology of
Creativity and the Pathology of Normality The Abnormal Psychology of
Creativity The Inner Turmoil Thesis Who Is Harmed? The Ascription of
Pathology The Situational Thesis The Psychopathology of Normality The
Psychiatric Plight of the Artist Afterword Part II. Psychology During a
Collapse of Culture Chapter 4. Acedia: When Work and Money Are the
Exclusive Values Work and Cultural Bankruptcy The Symptoms of Acedia
Acedia: Moral Failure or Psychiatric Disorder? Treatment of Work-Engendered
Depression Chapter 5. Barbarians at the Door: A Psychological and
Historical Profile of Today's College Students What Higher Education Meant
The Degradation of the Ideal of Higher Education as a Result of Democratic
Values The Self-undermining History of Higher Education in America The
Pathology of Narcissism Barbarity as a State of Mind The Mediocre
Population, the New Barbarians The New Dark Age, Already in Progress, and
the Disappearance of Higher Education Sobering Reflections Chapter 6.
Psychology, Culture, and the Demoralization of University Faculty The
Nature of Career Burnout The Concept of Situational Depression The
Situation in the Liberal Arts Situational Depression of Faculty in the
Liberal Arts Adjustment Disorders and the Liberal Arts Treatment for
Liberal Arts Demoralization Part III. Beyond Long-standing Facts Chapter 7.
The Psychology of Abuse in Publishing: Peer Review and Editorial Bias Gag
Orders through Time: Socrates, Savonarola, Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo
Religious Belief, Imprimatur, the Inquisition, and the Index Librorum
Prohibitorum Sedition, Treason, Censors, and Censorship Academic Freedom
versus Peer Review and Editorial Tampering Running Afoul of the Belief
Systems of Peer Reviewers and Editors: Varieties of Abuse in Peer Review
and Editorial Tampering The Psychopathology of Peer Review and Editorial
Bias: Blocks to Creative Research Obligations to Which Peer Review and
Editing Must Answer A Code of Conduct for Peer Reviewers and Editors
Removing the Psychological Obstacles Erected by Peer Review Conclusion
Chapter 8. The Psychology of Mediocrity: Internal Limitations That Block
Human Development A Brief History of a Mundane Trinity: Mediocrity,
Mediocre, Mediocracy Past Attempts to Understand the Psychology of
Mediocrity Mediocrity as a Set of Traits The Major Defining Traits of
Mediocrity "People Who Aren't Real" Resistance to Acknowledging Individual
Differences in Abilities The Epidemic of Mediocrity Mediocrity: Arrhostia
or Spandrel? Traits of Excellence and Superiority Rejecting Normality as a
Standard of Mental Health The Transmission of Mediocrity "A Room of One's
Own": The View from the Third Floor Chapter 9. Normality, Pathology, and
Mental Health The Romanes Principle Two Promising Directions and Two Kinds
of Pathology Creating Mental Disorders by Ballot Psychological Resistance
to the Abandonment of Psychological Normality as Mental Health
Psychological Primitiveness Iatrogenic Effects of Psychiatric Labeling
Afterword Part IV. In Retrospect Chapter 10. The Reflexive Turn in
Psychology The Economics of Human Emotion The Psychological Dynamic of a
Dark Age Subordinating Mundane Reality Practical Implications Idealism That
Is Not Hopeful Appendix I. An Apology to Lovers of Humanity? Appendix II.
Practical Speculations, or Speculative Practices Appendix III. The
Distribution of Mental Health References Index