Rami Kaminski is a psychiatrist with a particular focus on integrative psychiatric approaches. His contributions to psychiatry have earned numerous accolades, including the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Physician of the Year Award from New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital. In 2023, he founded the Otherness Institute with a mission to explain and decipher otroversion.
What’s the big idea?
For those who have always felt like the outsider—the satellite, the watcher, the lone thread in a tightly woven fabric—this is your permission. Not to fix yourself. Not to blend in. But to recognize that your difference is not a detour from connection. It’s a different road to it: the path of the otrovert. The Gift of Not Belonging challenges the assumption that belonging is an innate instinct. Not everyone feels safer inside the circle. Not belonging can hurt, but that hurt doesn’t always mean something is wrong. Sometimes it means something in you is awake.
Below, Rami shares five key insights from his new book, The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners. Listen to the audio version—read by Rami himself—below, or in the Next Big Idea App.
1. The myth of belonging.
We are taught from childhood that belonging is essential. We’re told to find our people, our tribe, our circle. To seek belonging as the only route to happiness. But what if that’s not true for everyone?
For some, belonging is not a destination—it’s a dissonance. As a psychiatrist, I’ve met countless people who are successful, loved, even admired, and yet carry this constant question: Why do I still feel like an outsider in every room I walk into?
It’s not because they’re anxious about fitting in. It’s not because they’ve been excluded. It’s because they don’t feel the group pull that most people do. Instead of seeing that as a natural variation, we pathologize it. We assume everyone can belong, and if they don’t, we treat it as a problem to be fixed. But what if the problem isn’t the person? What if the real problem is our culture’s obsession with merging, conforming, and fitting in?
There is a difference between herd behavior and hive behavior. Herds protect us from physical danger. But hives—groups with shared beliefs, ideologies, and rituals—protect us from existential loneliness. They offer a comforting echo: You are one of us. But that comfort comes at a cost. You must accept the hive’s logic, even when it makes no sense. You must believe in order to belong. Many people do this seamlessly, but others feel immediate discomfort. They see the circular reasoning of the hive for what it is: We believe this because everyone else does.
Most people accept the group they’re born into without question: its politics, religion, and customs. But some feel estranged from the very beginning. They don’t rebel outwardly, but they resist inwardly. They are observers instead of participants. They connect but don’t belong. The problem is that we turn this difference into a deficiency. We tell the child who prefers alone time that they need to socialize more. We ask the adult who doesn’t enjoy groupthink to be a team player. We reward mimicry over authenticity. Maybe not belonging is a clue, pointing us toward a way of being that values observation over assimilation; inner truth over conformity.
2. What is an otrovert?
We are all familiar with the terms introvert and extrovert. We use them to describe how we relate to people, gain energy, interact socially, and navigate the world. In my work as a psychiatrist, I noticed a third kind of person. Someone who didn’t fit either label. They weren’t shy or socially anxious. In fact, many were articulate, charismatic, and well-liked. They could lead meetings, speak on stage, or host gatherings with ease. However, no matter how successful they seemed within groups, they never truly felt they belonged.
I call them otroverts—from otro, the Spanish word for “other,” and vertere, Latin for “to turn.” Otroverts are people who turn in a different direction: not inward like introverts, not outward like extroverts, but elsewhere. They turn toward something else entirely—independence, clarity, and observation.
“Otroverts are people who turn in a different direction: not inward like introverts, not outward like extroverts, but elsewhere.”
Otroverts often feel like actors playing a role. They know how to engage, but never fully inhabit the group’s identity. They might wear the uniform, speak the language, even enjoy parts of it, but something in them remains unclaimed. They move through the group, but don’t dissolve into it.
This is where confusion arises. We assume that someone who doesn’t seem to join in must be aloof or disconnected. But non-belongers are often intensely connected to individuals or causes. They resist absorption to maintain emotional autonomy. Otroverts don’t thrive in echo chambers. They don’t mirror others reflexively. Instead, they deliberately reflect. In a culture that often equates sameness with confidence, that trait can be misunderstood. An otrovert’s nonbelonging is not a flaw; it is a design of its own.
3. Connection is not belonging.
Many otroverts possess profound emotional depth. They often form one-on-one relationships that are more intimate and authentic than those formed through traditional group bonding. They are often the people others turn to in moments of vulnerability because they don’t offer platitudes or tribal slogans. They offer presence and honesty. Their loyalty is deep because the emotional needs of the group do not dilute it.
The key is understanding that connection is not the same as belonging. Belonging often requires a kind of merger in which we suppress individuality for the sake of the group. You adopt the language, symbols, and shared beliefs of the group. You take on its tone. You belong by blending. A group’s safety is gained by conforming.
“Belonging often requires a kind of merger in which we suppress individuality for the sake of the group.”
Otroverts connect differently. They don’t need to share a group identity to feel close to someone. In fact, they often connect better outside the group precisely because there is no need to perform. They feel most alive when the masks come off and conversation moves beyond predictable affirmations. They’re averse to social theater. In a world where so much interaction is performative (especially online), this aversion becomes a superpower.
Otroverts thrive outside the logic of the hive. They don’t need consensus to feel close to someone. They don’t need a shared identity, ideology, or a common enemy. What they need is authenticity. This is why otroverts often become confidants. People trust them because they don’t offer prepackaged empathy. They don’t pretend to belong to your world just to comfort you. They meet you where you are, not where the group is.
When we assume that connection must mean belonging, we create environments where people feel forced to choose: Either join the group fully or be disconnected. Otroverts remind us that intimacy doesn’t require immersion. Sometimes the most meaningful connections happen outside the circle.
4. The high cost of forced belonging.
From an early age, we try to mold people into group participants. We put children in teams, camps, and clubs. We reward group enthusiasm. We praise the joiners. The message is subtle but clear: who you are isn’t enough. You need to be more like everyone else.
The price of forced belonging, even if successful, is self-abandonment. You must be pulled out of yourself to merge with the group. That robs otroverts of their major life asset: individuality. The child learns to mask. The adult learns to pretend. Over time, they lose touch with their inner compass. They perform at school, work, and home, but it never feels real.
Over time, many master their social performance. The adult version of the otrovert child learns to blend in at work, network at events, and make small talk at dinners. But beneath the surface, a question lingers: Why doesn’t any of this feel like me?
“The price of forced belonging, even if successful, is self-abandonment.”
Otroverts need permission to build their lives around their nature. When we fail to offer that permission, we risk damaging the essence that makes these individuals so quietly powerful: their ability to think independently, reflect deeply, and see what others miss.
Belonging can be conditioned but cannot be forced. When we try, we create a destructive conflict in those who cannot belong, and that conflict is far more damaging than solitude could ever be.
5. The gift of not belonging.
When an otrovert stops trying to belong, something radical and liberating happens. They reclaim their energy. They stop wasting it on performance. They stop rehearsing, adapting, and pleasing. Their mind sharpens. Their body settles. They begin to create, reflect, and build—not for applause, but for their own meaning.
Many otroverts become artists, prominent thinkers, inventors, and founders. Once they release the burden of fitting in, they become extraordinary contributors. They finally have space to think their own thoughts. Not belonging frees them from the tides of consensus.
The gift of not belonging is a gift of perspective. When you are not inside the group, you can recognize patterns, blind spots, and inherited beliefs. It allows you to love people deeply without absorbing their group logic. It lets you think freely. You can remain whole. The gift is a life that is not shaped by group demands, but by your own vision.
In a world obsessed with joining, otroverts remind us that sometimes the most courageous act is to embrace the freedom to walk alone. This isn’t a rejection of others. It’s a deep honoring of the self. It’s an invitation to live from the inside out.
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