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What are the features of mental health?
Mental health remains a rather elusive concept to define. There is however broad agreement that it is an equally important part of overall health as physical health and that good mental health is not simply the absence of disease. A person who is not mentally ill is not necessarily mentally healthy. We’re now going to try to define mental health.
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What are the features of mental health?
How would you define ‘Mental Health’? Write a brief definition and then check your definition with those featured on the next page.
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What are the features of mental health?
- The World Health organisation definition (2003)
A state of well being whereby individuals recognise their abilities, are able to cope with the normal stresses of daily life and make a contribution to their families and communities.
- Mentality’s definition
A sense of well being, the ability to make and sustain relationships, and the ability to meet the challenges and circumstances which later life brings. Of particular importance is an older person’s continuing capacity to experience enjoyment and adjust to new, and sometimes difficult, challenges.
- Mental Health Foundation’s definition
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The Mental Health Foundation, a UK based charity, views good mental health as the ability to:
- develop emotionally, creatively, intellectually and spiritually;
- initiate, develop and sustain mutually satisfying personal relationships;
- face problems, resolve them and learn from them;
- to be confident and assertive;
- be aware of others and empathise with them
- use and enjoy solitude;
- play and have fun;
- laugh, both at ourselves and at the world
(Mental Health Foundation, 2006).
Would you now change your definition?
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Defining mental health
As you may have noticed a number of the issues that were identified earlier as important to mental health also feature as elements of its definition. This is not surprising. They also have resonance with quality of life and successful ageing.
Mental health is closely bound up with self-perception. How older people view their mental and physical health is as important as any objective assessment of illness or reduced ability. How a person feels s/he is coping with life’s challenges such as activities of daily living, is as, or more, significant than the number or type of health problems they have (Thompson et al, 1990).
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Defining mental health
It is important to note that despite the common assumption that many older people are physically and/or mentally ill, it is only a small minority of those aged 65 or over who suffer major ill-health. Even at 75 years old and over, three out of four people remain in good, or reasonably good, physical and mental health (Victor 2005; Office of National Statistics, 2005).