Features a critical evaluation of the contemporary DSM-diagnostic that shows that the lack of reference to an updated governing metapsychology impinges on the therapeutic value of the DSM categories. This book sketches out the foundations of such a metapsychology by combining a Freudo-Lacanian approach with contemporary empirical research.

The central argument of On Being Normal and Other Disorders is that psychic identity is acquired through one's primary intersubjective relationships. Thus, the diagnosis of potential pathologies must also be founded on this relation. Given that the efficacy of all forms of treatment depends upon the therapeutic relation, a diagnostic of