ABSTRACT
It is well known that Vygotsky took a significant interest in abnormal psychology in children, or defectology, as it was then called, but browsing through today's authoritative sources on cultural psychology, such as The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology, leaves one with the impression that an interest in mental disorder and suffering, particularly in adults, is more or less non-existent. According to a number of leading analysts, the contemporary understandings of mental disorder in the West are heavily influenced by biomedicalization. The Danish medical sociologist Dorte Gannik devoted much of her career to developing a situational theory of illness. Her work, which was based on studies of somatic illness, notably back problems, is little known outside Scandinavia, but her theory is noteworthy because of its simple elegance. A hybrid psychological understanding of the mind is inclusive, but it is also aware of the fact that the psychological point of departure is always in the world of normativity.
