What is Normal? -

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Résumé :
Many people strive to be normal, and deviation from accepted norms can feel like
failure. But why do we want to be normal? And what does that mean? Ordinary? Sane?
Similar? When probed, the notion of normality starts to look fragile. It is not clear who
decides what being normal means or who is entitled to say. Nonetheless, concerns about
conforming and being accepted are deeply pervasive.

With an extraordinary diversity of perspectives, the authors featured in this collection - all
psychotherapists - use biographical accounts, political analyses and clinical vignettes to
challenge the concept of normality. Through these stories and discussions, it emerges that
our very uniqueness, oddness and differences as individuals are what make us fully human.

At a time of rapid social change, the freedom to be oneself - whatever form that takes - is at
the core of contemporary debate, and this volume makes a vital contribution to that project....

Biographie:
Jane Ryan trained as a psychotherapist at the Centre for Attachment-based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (CAPP) in the 1990s. Having worked in private practice for 8 years she set up Confer in order to bridge the theoretical gaps between schools of thought and professional communities in the field, and to provide a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue. She is the editor of How Does Psychotherapy Work? (Karnac, 2006) and Tales of Psychotherapy (Karnac, 2007). Roz Carroll is a relational body psychotherapist and supervisor. She teaches on the MA in Integrative Psychotherapy at The Minster Centre and has been a regular speaker for Confer for twenty years. She is committed to interdisciplinary dialogue. She is the author of numerous articles and chapters on subjects from working with the body in psychotherapy, to intersubjectivity,...

Sommaire:
Contents
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
INTRODUCTION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1. The new normal
Tania Glyde
2. Therapy and hope: are they really normal?
Andrew Samuels
3. No escape from 'normal'
Doris Brothers
4. The normal couple therapist
Jane Haberlin
5. Your normal, my normal. Disruptions, accommodations
and respect between therapist and patient
Susie Orbach
6. Black paranormal: a playlist
Foluke Taylor
7. Normal sex
Meg-John Barker
8. Minding the gap: a couple psychotherapist's perspective
Christopher Clulow
9. Born to love, driven to destroy
Felicity de Zulueta
10. The myth of normality
Chris Oakley
11. The shifting landscape of sexual normality
Dany Nobus
12. Norms and normality: a socio-psychoanalytic approach
Stephen Seligman
13. Why would I want to be normal?
Lennox K. Thomas
14. The problem of words. It's why we are all mad!
Phil Mollon
15. Negotiating the normal
Ann Shearer
16. Flourishing: the 'normal' therapist versus the
'healthy' therapist
Brett Kahr
17. Cultural schizophrenia and internalised
racism are not normal
Isha Mckenzie-Mavinga
18. In the therapy room: are all patients normal?
Valerie Sinason
19. When simply being human is abnormal
Stephen Setterberg
20. Future flat-packed or future fluid? Why normal
is the problem
Roz Carroll
REFERENCES
INDEX

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