Different Bodies: Deconstructing normality

'A revolution is underway in how we think about human variation. It has the potential to transform the social and political landscape, sweeping away walls and fences that stop so many people from fully participating. Psychotherapy should be in the vanguard of this revolution, but it isn't,' writes Nick Totton in this bold analysis of human difference. His aim is to challenge and also help the reader who self-defines as 'normal'- be they talking therapist, body therapist, client or anyone else - to interrogate their own normality, and hopefully to relinquish the word and all the privileges it brings. It is time, he writes, 'to dismantle that identity, pull down that statue, abandon that high plinth and rest on the solid ground of difference'. Then, he argues, psychotherapy practitioners may be in a position to learn from their clients how best to work with them.The book addresses differences of bodily capacity, gender and lifestyle differences, differences of skin colour and neuro differences. It also tackles differences between the human and non-human beings who inhabit the Earth. Totton's call is for recognition that we share this planet, and that creating standards of 'normality' leads to exclusion as well as inclusion, with all the psychological and other harms that brings.