What is the difference between adjusted and maladjusted person?

The Maladjusted Person: Mental illness, emotional instability, mental disorders, emotional disorders, psychological disorders-all these terms denote one and the same thing. They are interchangeably used to describe what we call maladjustment. They are interchangeably used to describe what we call maladjustment.

They denote conditions of tension and nervousness and the characteristic features of maladjustment are deviations in feelings, acting and thinking. The more serious the disorder, the more radical are the disturbances until a point is reached when the individual becomes almost incapable of adjusting to life.

The Adjusted Person:

Most normal people have to face frustrations; conflicts and such situations as may cause concern, anxiety and nervousness at times. They are able to overcome their troubles and adjust themselves to such situations. But there are people who cannot overcome their troubles and adjust themselves to such situations.

But there are people who cannot overcome their troubles and cannot compromise with them. They develop behaviour disorders in the form of exaggerated, persistent reactions which tend to incapacitate them and distort their feelings and behaviour. They are maladjusted persons.

They create another world in which they can live more comfortably and with real life situations they are in gross disharmony But it must be remembered that the distinction between the adjusted and the maladjusted is very subtle. The line between the two is very thin, for no person is completely adjusted. He is adjusted to a degree.

A normal person may be emotionally hyperactive at times and he may be so depressed that he can hardly live with himself. He may at times regress to childish behaviour and still be a normal man. A well-adjusted person maintains a favourable orientation towards reality “His life is like ship riding the waves.

He may be swayed this may or that by wind or weather but he always returns to an even keel. This even keel is his fundamental balance in life that enables him to withstand the thousands of disturbing stimuli which assail him and still keep his bearings and continue to move towards the goals he has set for himself.”