Transcript Mental health & Mental Illness

Defining Mental Health &
Mental Illness
Dr Joanna Bennett
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental health
• How would you define mental health?
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental Health
• Ability to:
– develop emotionally, creatively,
intellectually and spiritually
– initiate, develop and sustain mutually
satisfying personal relationships
– face problems, resolve them and learn
from them
– be confident and assertive
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental Health
What is Mental Health? .........
Ability to:
– be aware of others and empathise with
them
– use and enjoy solitude
– play and have fun
– laugh, both at ourselves and at the world
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental Health
• Ability to enjoy life
• Resilience – bounce back from adversity
• Balance – time spent socially and alone
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental illness
• How would you define mental illness?
– Deviation from social norms – those who
break these norms are seen as abnormal and
when extreme as mental illness
– Dysfunctional behaviour –not functioning
correctly and not leading a ‘normal’ life
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental illness
• Personal distress – usual gauge of mental
state
• Observer discomfort – disruptive,
destructive, uncomfortable for other people
• Unpredictable behaviour – inappropriate
to a situation, over-reaction, over/under
concerned, reflect high/low level emotion
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental illness
• Irrational behaviour – does not make
sense to others and cannot be reasonably
explained.
– belief that all behaviours should in some way
be explained through a rational reason for their
existence
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental Health/illness
• Is mental health the absence of mental illness?
• Most People are not totally mentally healthy but
not mentally ill
• Almost everyone has experienced problems in
which the distress one feels matches some of the
signs and symptoms of mental disorders.
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental Health/Illness
• But symptoms are of insufficient intensity
or duration to meet the criteria for a
diagnosis of mental disorder.
• Mental health & Mental illness are not polar
opposites but points on a continuum
Dr Joanna Bennett
Dr Joanna Bennett
• Mental health (normality) & Mental illness
(abnormality) is subject to many different
interpretations rooted in value judgments that may
vary across cultures
• Defining abnormal behaviour or mental disorders
is not an exact science.
• Dividing line is to do with severity of symptoms,
duration and functional impairment
• Threshold for illness/disorder set by convention
Dr Joanna Bennett
Definition of Mental health
• “a state of successful performance of mental
function, resulting in productive activities,
fulfilling relationships with other people,
and the ability to adapt to change and to
cope with adversity”
• Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General- (1999) U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services
Dr Joanna Bennett
Mental illness
• “….refers collectively to all diagnosable
mental disorders. Mental disorders are
health conditions that are characterized by
alterations in thinking, mood, or behaviour
(or some combination thereof) associated
with distress and/or impaired functioning”.
• Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General(1999) U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr Joanna Bennett