Well Adapted?

Most psychiatrists take the structure of their own society so much for granted that to them the person who is not well adapted assumes the stigma of being less valuable.

On the other hand, the well adapted person is supposed to be the more valuable person in terms of a scale of human values.

If we differentiate the two concepts of normal and neurotic, we come to the following conclusion: the person who is normal in terms of being well adapted is often less healthy than the neurotic person in terms of human values.

Often he is well adapted only at the expense of having given up his self in order to become more or less the person he believes he is expected to be. All genuine individuality and spontaneity may have been lost.

On the other hand, the neurotic person can be characterized as somebody who was not ready to surrender completely in the battle for his self ... from the standpoint of human values, he is less crippled than the kind of normal person who has lost his individuality altogether.

... there is a discrepancy between the aims of the smooth functioning of society and of the full development of the individual.

[Erich Fromm]
The Fear of Freedom, p.119-20

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