A category long overdue in the DMS is nihilnormaphilamania, a subset of the obsessive-compulsive disorder. Recognized as principally occuring among psychiatric professionals, the first case so labled, however, was a historian, Christopher Lasch, and resulted from the publication of his book, A Culture of Narcissism. Generally speaking, that case defined the manifestations of the disorder. The afflicted typically embrace the delusion that a given assumedly normal group or population of the society–or even the society itself–suffers from a psychopathology; frequently, for reasons as yet unknown, the psychopathology is narcissism. In advanced and irreversible stages, the nihilnormaphilamaniac exhibits a sense of acceptance that involves throwing up their hands in gestures of helplessness and an echolalia that is unique to the disorder. Every patient repeats over and over, “Only crazy is normal, ha ha, ha ha. Nothing normal for me, I think, ha ha, ha ha!” As of yet, proper case management is controversial. The only uniformly accepted treatment is hot sitz baths when the excitement reaches manic proportions, although some have reported satisfactory results from iced sitz baths.
