For many years the idea of normality was predicated on the notion that humans,if given a healthy environment and opportunities for growth and development, would turn out to be healthy and happy.
If we are suffering or struggling with some psychological issue or some intense emotion, that means that we do not have "healthy normality", we are abnormal, and something has to be done to fix this abnormality.
Current scientific research on the brain and the processes of mind does NOT support this view. ACT Therapy confronts and challenges the old view of "healthy normality." How can this description of normality be accurate if vast numbers of humans in their lifetimes struggle with conditions which are labeled as psychiatric conditions and disorders?
ACT Therapy takes a diametrically opposite position and " assumes that the psychological processes of a normal human mind are often destructive and create psychological suffering for us all, sooner or later." (Harris, R. Psychotherapy in Australia, Vol 12,No 4, 2006) Furthermore, ACT therapy postulates that what causes most of this human suffering is language. When language is used to deal, problem solve, and predict events in the outside world, it serves us exceptionally well. But when we use it to evaluate ourselves and to
define who we are, we encounter problems of major proportion.
Think of any self evaluation you use to describe yourself--for example, "I am an honest person." The unpleasant truth is that all humans lie, massage the truth, protect others with white lies, and use evasion and selective story telling to make our lives easier. Thus, the statement "I am an honest person" becomes inaccurate the first time that I tell an untruth or dress up the details in some way. And this is how we get ensnared in the web that we have cast.
So we are left to ponder if it is even possible to evaluate ourselves in any meaningful way--without getting caught in the rigid limits of language. If we are not who we "say" we are, who are we?
