Are Normal People Sane?

Psychiatrists have for many years regarded conditions such as anxiety or depression as
being at the extreme end of a normal distribution of the characteristic. In contrast,
traditional psychiatric classification considers disorders such as schizophrenia as discrete
conditions qualitatively quite distinct from normality. However, recent surveys have
suggested that minor psychotic symptoms are relatively common amongst the general population,
and that they are increased by the same factors as increase the risk of schizophrenia.
Furthermore, other studies indicate that those diagnosed as psychotic are in many ways
rational. This new evidence suggests that a continuum of liability to psychosis exists, and
that the mad are saner than is often thought while the normal are not so sane as we commonly assume.