The Search For Normality

Describes the selection, design, theory, and application of tests for normality. Covers robust estimation, test power, and univariate and multivariate normality. Contains tests ofr multivariate normality and coordinate-dependent and invariant approaches.

The author follows the debates beyond the unexpected unification of the country in 1989/90 and analyses the most recent trends in German historiography, hoping that it doesn't return to the stifling homogeneity that characterized it before the 1960s.

During his political career, Helmut Kohl used his own life story to promote a normalization of German nationalism and to overcome the stigma of the Nazi period. In the context of the cold war and the memory of the fascist past, he was able to exploit the combination of his religious, generational, regional, and educational (he has a PhD in History) experiences by connecting nationalist ideas to particular biographical narratives. Kohl presented himself as the embodiment of “normality”: a de-radicalized German nationalism which was intended to eclipse any anti-Western and post-national peculiarities. This book takes a biographical approach to the study of nationalism by examining its manifestation in Helmut Kohl and the way he historicized Germany’s past.

How do you define good mental health? This controversial, counterintuitive, and altogether fascinating book argues that "psychological normality" is neither a desirable nor an acceptable standard. Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health: The Need to Look Elsewhere for Standards of Good Psychological Health is a groundbreaking work, the first book-length study to question the equation of psychological normality and mental health. Its author, Dr. Steven James Bartlett, musters compelling evidence and careful analysis to challenge the paradigm accepted by mental health theorists and practitioners, a paradigm that is not only wrong, but can be damaging to those to whom it is applied—and to society as a whole. In this bold, multidisciplinary work, Bartlett critiques the presumed standard of normality that permeates contemporary consciousness. Showing that the current concept of mental illness is fundamentally unacceptable because it is scientifically unfounded and the result of flawed thinking, he argues that adherence to the gold standard of psychological normality leads to nothing less than cultural impoverishment.

This book is primarily meant for those homosexuality afflicted persons who seek practical advice in order to change, or, at least, to constructively and responsibly deal with it. It is written with their needs, anxieties, and weaknesses in mind, as Dr. Van den Aardweg has learned them during more than 30 years of therapy with homosexual persons. There is a need for such a practical ""guide"" because there are very few able therapists who want to help the well-intentioned homosexual to change, and because most existing works on homosexuality are about theory, not about every-day self-therapy. Theoretical subjects are discussed, too, in so far as they are necessary to be able to fight the homosexual inclination, and to refute certain myths. This is a Christian psychological approach and it offers the best opportunities for change. ""Rich and insightful. Highly recommended."" -Paul Vitz, Ph.D. ""Provides a useful, ""no-nonsense"" guide for self-help therapy. Many readers will be helped by this practical book."" - Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., Author, Healing Homosexuality , Gerard Van den Aardweg has had a private psychotherapeutic practice since 1963 in Holland, specializing in the treatment of homosexuality and marriage problems. He has written for many publications in these fields, and has authored several books on homosexuality.

Most of us think we know what is meant when we hear the term "normal,” but Cryle and Stephens upend taken-for-granted attitudes about the term. They offer a history of the intellectual and cultural issues that have been at stake in the use of the term since it appeared around 1820. What is taken at one time or any one culture to be "aberrant” or "deviant” clearly depends on assumed meanings for norm and normality. The authors of this book explore this history--peppered with a fascinating series of case studies--to make sense of variations on the theme of identity (disability, gender, race, sexuality) in fields organized around identity. They locate the concept in the scientific spheres where it originated in its modern sense and they chart its transformations and developments from the 1820s in France (medicine) to the mid-20th century (Alfred Kinsey). They start with comparative anatomy and other branches of medicine before moving on to consider developments in fields as remote as craniometry, statistics, criminal anthropology, sociology, and eugenics. It is not enough to say, with David Halperin, that ”queer” is "whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant.” Cryle and Stephens move beyond a simple binary opposition between "normal” and "abnormality” to give us the whole picture, from the Continent to the U.S., and in all the contexts that distinguish the normal from other available terms (such as typical, average, respectable, conventional, white and heterosexual, and uniform). "Normality” has had a long struggle to secure its cultural dominance and authority, a story which is told here for the first time.

​The political participation of names such as Mowassat, Demirel, or Özdemir alongside conventional German names such as Schmidt, Maier, or Beck is already becoming a routine aspect in German politics. Recent political debates on introducing special quotas to motivate more political aspirants with migration background adds emphasis on the necessity to elaborate whether and how having a ‘migration background’ is negotiated in political practice. Devrimsel Deniz Nergiz investigates how German politicians with migration background negotiate and deploy the marker ‘migration background’ in their political practice.