4 Levels of Mental Health

• There are 4 levels of mental health

Levels of Mental Health

• No Distress/Problem/Disorder: Everything is going fine
• Mental Distress: Involves everyday problems, irritations and conflicts which result in adaptations and growth
• Mental Health Problem: Includes serious events that are long term and intense
• Mental Disorder/Illness: Diagnosed formally, this involves a chemical or synaptic abnormality in the brain
• Mental feelings and illnesses connect to the body because the brain controls all cognition
• Cognition affects the way one behaves, reacts, and perceives

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• One cannot climb the ladder if the lower level of needs are not met
• Bottom Level: Physiological Needs like food, water, sleep and air
• Lower Level: Safety involves shelter, protection, money and staying out of distress
• Middle Level: Love and Belonging which is finding relationships such as social, romantic or familial
• Higher Level: Esteem Needs includes self-esteem, social status, approval of others and achievements
• Top Level: Self-Actualization, which is never fully satisfied, but always has room to grow
• Self-actualization is the ability to achieve, accept uniqueness, be realistic, independent, appreciative of life, creative, hardworking and loving

Defense Mechanism

• A coping strategy that helps protect a person from intense or difficult feelings

Defense Mechanisms Examples

• Denial: Avoiding acceptance of an obvious situation because of the intensity of emotional pain
  • Ex: Saying you're "on a break" after being broken up with
• Compensation: Bringing attention to strengths to redirect from, and cover up failure in another area
  • Ex:Pull focus away from a bad test score so your subject focuses on the better one
• Displacement: Taking out your anger on someone when it isn't their fault and/or has nothing to do with them
  • Ex: Yelling at a friend in the car for distracting you because you got a speeding ticket when really it was you who was speeding
• Identification: Identifying yourself with people who are of a higher level of status than you to increase your own or your self-esteem
  • Ex: Ditching your friends to hang out with the most popular kid in school to become popular yourself
• Intellectualization: Overcomplicating your emotional personal events such as using more academic, philosophical or scientific language to describe them
• Projection: Casting feelings you have for another person or blaming another person for your feelings; forcing your feelings or thoughts onto your beliefs
  • Ex: Telling your friends that they should dislike the people you dislike
• Rationalization: Making logical excuses for nonsensical situations, behaviors or actions
  • Ex: Someone going too fast in a car accident when they were texting and driving
• Reaction Formation: Replacing feelings that aren't considered socially or contextually acceptable with those that are
  • Ex: Being nonchalant about something that really made you feel a strong emotion
• Regression: Reverting to or emulating childlike behaviors to fulfill one's desires aka "to go back"
  • Ex: A 7-year-old crying or wetting themselves like their baby sibling to revert attention back to themselves
• Repression: The act of subconsciously forgetting trauma or information that the brain perceives as too painful or intense
  • Ex: Being in a car accident as a child and not being able to explain why your body reacts to being in a car
• Sublimation: Redirecting socially unacceptable impulses into something positive, constructive, or "blowing off steam"
  • Ex: Choosing to journal instead of punching someone in the face