The Abnormal Normals and the Normal Abnormals
Sessions
ACCÈS WEBINAIRE
The Abnormal Normals and the Normal Abnormals
Who is normal today? Who isn't? And above all: who has the power to decide?
This conference day, held online on Friday 14 November 2025, is now available as a full replay. Six clinicians offer a lucid, critical and deeply human exploration of contemporary forms of normality.
In a social and clinical context where boundaries keep shifting, the notion of normality has become moving ground. Between diagnostic classifications, managerial norms, cultural expectations, social injunctions and family pressures, what is considered "normal" is changing at great speed — sometimes to the point of losing its meaning.
With humour, nuance and systemic vigilance, the speakers question the uses, drifts, effects and paradoxes produced by the norm — in clinical work, in institutions, in families, among adolescents, and even… among therapists themselves.
Online video replay • Immediate access after purchase • Unlimited, lifetime access
For which audiences
This conference replay is particularly suited to care and support professionals, as well as anyone curious to understand how norms shape our lives, our practices and our identities.
Reflection directly useful for practice
- Unfold the tensions between normality, suffering and pathologisation.
- Question what norms allow, prevent or render invisible.
- Revisit your clinical practice in the light of a systemic, critical reading.
- Shed light on what is becoming "normal"… when perhaps it is not.
- Nourish your ethical reflection in your contexts of intervention.
The talks of the day
By purchasing the replay, you get access to all the talks, from the opening to the closing of the day.
Opening of the day
- Putting the theme into perspective
- Clinical, institutional and societal stakes of normality
Dr Robert Neuburger
- "How it became normal to be abnormal: the diagnostic claim"
- When diagnoses become identity markers, at the risk of freezing people in their categories
Isabelle Duret
- "Clinical work facing managerial norms: resisting, transforming, reinventing"
- Tensions between managerial logics and clinical requirements, with concrete leads for reinventing one's practice in institutions
Anne-Catherine Pernot-Masson, read by Claire Gekiere
- "'My friend told me that's not normal': the notion of normality among adolescents"
- Peer norms, social networks, gender scripts and adolescent verdicts on self-esteem and behaviour
Julien Besse
- "Are therapists normal people?"
- A serious yet mischievous second-cybernetics reflection on the therapist's place in permanent contact with "abnormality"
Claire Gekiere
- "The art of accommodating the mind: from therapy to therapy, stories of assessment"
- Thinking assessment in psychotherapy without reducing the living to numbers
Jean Van Hemelrijck
- "The fake madmen"
- How some apparent "madness" can only be understood by placing the person back in their relational, social or institutional context
Conclusion of the day
- Synthesis of the contributions
- Returning to the big questions
A conference born from an idea of Dr Robert Neuburger
This conference is organised by Le Complexe Systémique, in collaboration with Éco Système Association, the Université Libre de Bruxelles, la Forestière and le Lien Systémique.
Immediate, unlimited and lifetime
Access to the replay is immediate after purchase, unlimited and lifetime. You can watch each talk at your own pace, pause, return to the passages that strike you and deepen your reflection over time.
For any question (invoicing, accessibility, group registration, etc.): contact@complexe-systemique.com
Normal, not normal… come and decide for yourself
A full day of clinical, critical and joyfully offbeat reflection on normality, to rewatch as many times as you wish. Talks in French.
