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

by Gabor Maté

Or consider the DSM-5 diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), often tacked on to ADHD and other “diseases.” “If your child or teenager has a frequent and persistent pattern of anger, irritability, arguing, defiance or vindictiveness toward you and other authority figures, he or she may have oppositional defiant disorder,” advises the Mayo Clinic.[8] The clue is in the word “toward”: oppositionality, by definition, can arise only in the context of a relationship. I can suffer symptoms of a cold in isolation, or break my ankle on my own. I cannot oppose anyone or be angry or irritable with anyone unless that “anyone” is in some relationship with me. “If you don’t believe me,” I sometimes tell audiences of therapists, parents, teachers, or medical professionals, “just lock yourself in your room tonight, make sure you are absolutely alone, and oppose somebody. If you succeed, put it on YouTube—it’ll go viral in no time.” Given that a child develops in the context of relationships, her behavior will be intelligible to us only if we look at the relational environment. Seen this way, these so-called ODD kids turn out to be ones who lack sufficient connection with nurturing adults and have a natural resistance to being controlled by people they do not fully trust or feel close enough to. This aversion, furthermore, is only magnified by all attempts to shame or cajole it into submission. To call this “disordered” says nothing about the child’s inner experience; it reflect...