The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture

by Gabor Maté

For better or worse, we humans have a genius for getting used to things, especially when the changes are incremental. The newfangled verb “to normalize” refers to the mechanism by which something previously aberrant becomes normal enough that it passes beneath our radar. On a societal level, then, “normal” often means “nothing to see here”: all systems are functioning as they should, no further inquiry needed.