A confusion exists in psycho-analytic thinking on the differentiation between normal and abnormal. The paper argues that this derives from the conflation of two quite distinct meanings of normality: the ideal and the average. One consequence of this confusion is that psycho-analysis has been repeatedly obliged to recognise as normal primitive phenomena it originally treated as psychopathology. While these two meanings may be complementary, it remains very difficult to reconcile them, although the paper attempts to do so.