Human Development
Positive mental health
Description:
Mental health and well-being are usually taken for granted so that the main focus of attention in the mental health field has been on various forms of mental illness. However, mental health is not only a question of treating individuals, nor of implementing measures which are preventive and orientated towards the individual. Modern mental health considers man in his interplay with his contemporary milieu (from family and working environment to the wider economic and ecological milieu) at any given moment.An important task for mental health is therefore to organize the environment in such a way that man can thrive. Social, ecological or physical purification of the environment and other mental hygienic interventions thus clearly come under this heading. This is why mental health has become a political issue, and why reconsidering concrete tasks for mental health also requires consideration of the concept of mental health in relation to mankind's current situation.
For instance, rapidly increasing urban slums are areas where the low quality of life causes a variety of mental distress, this being exacerbated by the numbers of individuals living alone or in very small family groups. Community mental health projects can promote mutual support and self-help. Raising social consciousness in people who previously accepted resentfully their deprived situation can simultaneously enable them to improve their own present mental health by learning to work together and to cooperate in problem solving; and improve the situation for the future by dealing with behaviour problems and psychosocial ills in the community. Similarly, migration (particularly selective migration of workers who leave their families behind) can cause a variety of mental disturbances. Legislation can increase these problems by denying rights to migrant workers and their families; but such legislation - and legislation in every field affecting human relations and the life of the individual - could and should be directed towards positive aspects of mental health. Laws which now consider only the physical wellbeing of claimants for welfare should be altered to take their mental wellbeing into account also.
Another area in positive mental health which deserves attention is the strengthening of the family and the way it functions through clear-sighted social policies, better community organization and special intervention in risk situations. Again the advantages are two-fold - improvement in the mental climate within the family; and better care in cases where treatment is necessary by using the family and community to assist in that treatment, thus "re-humanizing" the health services and diverting much needed resources to other areas of need. This improvement in family and community attitudes has also to be followed in the training of health workers at all levels in a more humane and understanding approach to mental disability.
Increasingly, therefore, the various kinds of mental disease are considered as given, with specification of positive mental health and its conditions as the problem to be solved.
Related:
Mental hygienePsychoneuroimmunology