If you ask an expert who studies mental health, how can you judge whether a person's mental state is normal or abnormal? I think he may have pondered it for a long time and couldn't answer it at the moment. What is the reason?

Mainly because it is difficult to absolutely distinguish between normal and abnormal, normal and pathological (even "abnormal"). To determine whether a person's psychology is abnormal, we must first determine a "normal standard". But so far, there is no such "standard" recognized as the most standard.

At present, there are usually three ways to determine whether a person's psychology is normal:

First, the reasoning method

This is a standard to determine and judge normal or pathological according to a person's subjective knowledge and experience. Practice has proved that this method is very unreliable.

For example, it is generally believed that young people should sleep no less than 8 hours a day. However, some young people have developed the habit of sleeping for 7 hours for a long time, which has no adverse effects on their physical and mental health. Can you say that people who sleep seven hours a day are abnormal? I once heard such a joke. A young man said to his wife, "I think everyone in our class (classmates in college) has a little strange temper except you and me." Sometimes, I think you are a little strange. "

In fact, I am afraid that the young people who say this sentence are somewhat "eccentric". Strangely, he regards his temper and personality as the only criterion to measure the psychological quality of their former classmates. He regards anyone with different psychological characteristics as "eccentric" or "morbid".

Second, the normal distribution method

Many so-called "mental disorders" are obviously very strong in the abnormal population, but they also exist in different degrees in the normal population. For example, because of unsatisfactory work and unsatisfactory test scores, everyone will feel depressed and sad, while the sadness and pain of people with mental disorders are too strong, and even often endless, and even lead to mental illness.

The normal distribution curve has small ends and large middle. In this picture, most people belong to the "intermediate type", and their normal characteristics and normal trends are theoretically neither too much nor too little, neither too big nor too small, and they are in a suitable median; But it's actually a little too much, a little too big. However, there are fewer people at both ends of the normal distribution curve. They are either unhealthy or healthy, that is, they have too many normal characteristics or trends or too few. The so-called disorder and disease at both ends are only relative, and can be divided into slight disorder, serious disorder and serious disorder in degree. Because between the middle and the ends, it can be divided into different levels.

Third, the pathogenic test methods

The standard on which this method is based is to pay attention to the causes of mental disorders. Generally speaking, there are two reasons for mental disorders: physiological reasons and psychological reasons.

Physiological reasons are relatively easy to find. For example, memory loss or decline caused by trauma such as concussion. The psychological obstacles caused by psychological reasons are hard to find, and often even the cause can't be found. Because psychogenic mental disorder is difficult to judge and determine, the treatment is difficult and intractable.

The test methods of psychogenic etiology are also constantly being explored and improved. It can be expected that with the rapid development of modern psychiatry and medical psychology theory and technology, there will be new breakthroughs in the near future, bringing good news to those who are mentally abnormal due to psychological reasons.