On Being Normotic

Normal people are weird.

In a piece I posted on Substack about mental health in May, I mentioned the psychological concept of ‘normotic’. This was an idea introduced to me by my former therapist, Manu Bazzano, with whom I post weekly discussions in the Boot Camp ‘15 Minute Philosophy’ thread.

What does it mean to be normotic? For it is conceptualised by some as a form of mental illness - the disorder of being ‘too normal’. Such people are characterised as ‘normopaths’, in other words, abnormally normal.

According to Wikipedia “Normopathy is the pathological pursuit of conformity and societal acceptance at the expense of individuality.’ In her book, Plea for a Measure of Abnormality, psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall coined the term normopathy to describe fear of individuality. Normopathy is difficult to diagnose because normopaths are integrated in society.

According to Christopher Bollas, author of ‘Meaning and Melancholia: Life in the Age of Bewilderment’, the normopath is defined by a particular kind of anxiety—psychophobia, or the fear of looking within and examining one’s own psyche. Normopathic selves reject self-reflection and have diminished curiosity about inner life.

I am fascinated by this concept, and my suspicion is that normopathy is extremely common, even possibly the ‘norm’ in society. I cannot prove this , obviously, but writing as a hyper-introvert, who is compelled by his own inner life, I have often been fascinated, puzzled and often shocked by people’s reactions to my curiosity about their inner lives ( as a novelist, this curiosity is entirely necessary to engage in my creative life).