[Normality, normativity and marginality]

Different points of view about sense of "normality" for psychiatrists are reviewed. It appears that there is not any satisfactory criterion which defines the limit between normal and abnormal. In the field of mental processes, normality is a valuation which is not independent of the psychiatrist's own values, and of his socio-cultural mode of thinking. One of the consequences of this is the risk of "normativity". Normativity indeed terms the imposition of norms on the subject which correspond to the ideal of the psychiatrist or to the ideal of the society, without respecting the individuality of the subject. It is recalled that social abnormality, or "marginality", i.e. the non-respect of social norms, should not be confused with psychiatric abnormality.