Living With Ourselves

The former president of the American Psychological Association, a native of Edmonton, Dr. Frank Farley, considers the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders which now lists 357 types of psychiatric afflictions to have outgrown itself: "I think it's just gotten out of hand ... How many vote for this, how many vote for that? It's a problem. The science of human behaviour has gone way beyond that."

Normal human behaviours in all their rich and varied manifestations have come under the close scrutiny of a microscopic classification. The better to assess and diagnose us with. We cannot enthusiastically, innocently, incorrectly, eccentrically, adversely behave any longer as we will, for fear of being identified with a troubling pathology.

One which, furthermore, must be attended to medically and chemically. For our own good. And the greater good of society. Oh, and by the way, the growing authority of the psychiatric community of medical professionals. And just incidentally, their partners in this crime of pathologizing human behaviour, the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Farley contends that the DSM seeks to conformalize and abnormalize human behaviour. Anything that remotely resembles non-conformance; extreme reactions are no longer in the realm of normal human behaviour, but instead constitute behaviours seen through the lens of pathology. "So we begin thinking of too many things in terms of sickness. We're going to treat you to make you normal."

Quirks and eccentricities are no longer admirable, nor are extreme reactions, nor insistence in individualism, thrill-seeking, adventure-clinging, discovery-prone attitudes to life. These must be muted, treated, pacified. To be dull, conformist, disinterested, removed, is to be normal. If that state of being cannot be reached by sheer will alone, the psychiatric profession stands ready to step in and rescue the situation.

They will prescribe the proper medication. And if that medication doesn't work, and instead creates troubling physical and mental conditions arising out of their use, why then, other pharmaceuticals can be tried until the correct combination is finally found that will deaden all human sensation and make one comatose to 'being'.