ABSTRACT
There can be no such thing as mental illness. The reasons for this are multiple but the simplest is that ‘mental’ – as an entity – doesn’t exist in the material sense. If something has no material existence ‘it’ cannot be ill, wayward, disturbed or any other qualified state. People are said to be distressed when they display a host of different reactions and conduct. Each display is codified within a social rubric familiar to anyone sharing cultural norms with the so-called distressed person. Invariably such displays are physical – from weeping to laughing. Accompanying such displays may be a statement from the person concerning something we conceive as an internal world – what they are thinking, words meant to convey their feelings and so on. This conception of an internal world includes the notion that there is a ‘mental’ world, presumed to consist of thoughts and feelings to which, via words, we have access. Social norms dictate which aspects of this mental world are to be considered desirable and, via a sleight of hand to which few are privy, ‘normal’. Normality so defined excludes common states of being and limits what can be expressed or
stated. It is thus ‘normal’ to fear someone with a gun but ‘abnormal’ to fear someone who points a banana at you, unless he/she does it in the socially determined ‘threatening’ way. It can be said to be normal to think you are a creature of flesh and bone but abnormal to say that you are capable of transmitting your spiritual essence across mountain tops. To cry and wail at the death of a loved one will be seen as normal unless the conduct is deemed ‘excessive’. This will then be re-normalized via investigation by another person (often designated an expert) who probes your past and discovers ‘reasons’ for your ‘mental distress’. From there it is a short step to claim that all such distress is explicable if only you search hard enough and thus represent problems in living rather than an illness. Once again, however, an appeal to socially sanctioned norms is being made; the ‘explanation’ follows a simple formula along the lines:
Most people would find X difficult and many would express their reaction to X in a variety of ways. Your way, Y, is not socially acceptable though easily understood as a reaction to X.
