We want psychology/iatry to sort out the normal from the abnormal, but that doesn’t work: normal and abnormal are fundamentally social. This is a version of the

We want psychology/iatry to sort out the normal from the abnormal, but that doesn’t work: normal and abnormal are fundamentally social. This is a version of the is-ought problem. In my experience (both as a walk-in consumer-patient and with friends who happen to be shrinks) psychiatry is at its best when it focus on functionality — can this person brush his teeth; can he walk among crowds (and not lose his virtue); can he hold a job, a relationship. Most gratifying for a psychiatrist in private practice (I’m told) is to watch someone go from Mozart-and-the-whale nuts to having a good career, marriage and kids. Of course, in institutional settings people want to cure madness like one cures pneumonia. That’s fundamentally dehumanizing, though.