The attribution of normality has to do with the specificity of a culture

I often observe among my clients a certain need to be normal and at the same time be different; They don't like to be like most, but they are afraid of being different.

Because being different means running the risk of being excluded from the group or society, and that is the greatest punishment that a human being can be subjected to.

So that we will do everything possible to be validated in the group and at the same time have permission to also validateWell, that is the meaning of belonging. Maximum aspiration of the human being. I think even above that of being loved.

This is the only way to explain the tolerance we create to mistreatment, abuse, discomfort, and attachment to the suffering that we manifest. etc.

• Related article: "Group identity: the need to feel part of something"

The concept of normal

In that search for belonging, when people feel that perhaps they do not fit into the everyday or the common, suffering is born and Sometimes they come to us, psychologists or therapists, or people who accompany them in difficult processes, in search of something that include. Something that they feel included with, something that explains their rarity but under the idea that it is normal, that it happens to more humans.

They come looking for a solution, but that goes through belonging, for normality. And they also come looking for an explanation that calms them down, places them somewhere where there are human beings like them, who have a series of common characteristics and that allows them to feel admitted (even if it is within a group that may originate a priori rejection). Paradoxes of the human being.

Sometimes even unconsciously we are able to accentuate the characteristics that separate us from the group to which we would like to belong if with it we approach another group. That is, we can even beg for a simple label that allows us to identify with someone, with "someone else like me", even if it is to belong to the group of the excluded, (there is already a plural, it is not me alone and that reassures me, I have someone, I belong ...).

The discomfort of loneliness

The human being takes loneliness badly, since there is no greater punishment for a social and rational animal than releasing it into the herd, society, and being ignored by it. He dies.

Therefore, we make sense when they see usas it is a way of confirming identity. This is so because "the other" is the feedback of who we are, the mirror in which we look at ourselves in order to correct our course and grow. When they ignore us, we lack data and we are lost. We simply don't see each other either, because we don't exist.

Although we could say that it is the belief that the other ignores us, the translation of his response or no response from him, what he builds in us that absence of self-esteem and vulnerability and identification with the other.

• You may be interested in: "Personal and social identity"

The use of labels before one's own identity

Thus, many times we, trade assistants, can fall into the temptation of, to alleviate suffering, pull a diagnosis and place a label on them that guarantees "the normal"; although over time they realize that it does not make sense, that nothing has changed, only in appearance is calmer.

Thus, he begins to give himself permission to behave according to the meaning of the label he paid for. That tranquility turns into restlessness, when you notice that nothing changes, when the suffering does not diminish but begins to be chronic.

All this makes sense, because it is as if when labeling we went to the warehouse in our little box: neurotic, depressive, bipolar, personality disorder... And to rest. We just don't rest, because we are much more than a label, much more than 100 labels, we are much more than all that. And if we are on one shelf, we cannot be on another, since we do not have the gift of ubiquity.

The human being has another peculiarity and it is that he likes to feel free, he has given it there; and sometimes he likes to stand out, even if it is simply for the luxury of innovating and growing. So It is wrong for everything he does to be looked at through the glasses of the label he bought, since that makes you have to give up growth.

Thus we can explain why states become chronic against all the advance of neuroscience, where it is more than proven that Neuroplasticity of the brain allows new synaptic connections to be established so that new behaviors are established, supported by a different chemistry.

So how do we go about do not fall into the static of the adjective, or of the label and favor the eventuality, the impermanence and the possibility of change and the relief of suffering?

• Not fitting the individual to the label.
• Taking awareness and transmitting when diagnosing that what is happening is happening at this moment, but that it does not have to happen always.
• Convey that the behavior or gaze is subject to the context in which it is being developed, that in another context or with another gaze, perhaps such behavior would not be a cause of suffering.
• Always treat the individual as a single, obvious case. And talk to him from belonging to that box and many others, and that he can handle them at will. That is, give him the power of change.
• Explore the benefits and harms of being on that immovable label.
• Contextualize when that behavior was useful, and what would be useful in it.
• Make a plan to develop this new behavior.

In conclusion

Reassure without labeling, welcome without mutilating, accompany without obstructing. Inspire without imposing.

This, I believe, is the mission of therapists and other groups dedicated to reducing suffering.