Mental Health Overview

Mental Health Definition and Characteristics

• Mental health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not just the absence of disease or infirmity.
• A mentally healthy person realizes their abilities, can cope with normal stress, work productively, and contribute to their community.
• Characteristics of a mentally healthy person include:
  • Feeling comfortable about themselves, with self-respect and acceptance of their shortcomings.
  • Feeling right towards others, with ability to form satisfying and lasting friendships.
  • Being able to meet life's demands, think for themselves, and take responsibility for their actions.

Types of Mental Illness

• Mental and behavioral disorders are characterized by altered thinking, mood, or behavior, with personal distress and/or impaired functioning.
• Examples of mental health disorders include:
  • Organic, symptomatic mental disorders (e.g., dementia, delirium).
  • Mental and behavioral disorders due to psychoactive substance use (e.g., alcohol dependence, opioid dependence).
  • Schizophrenia, schizotypal, and delusional disorders (e.g., paranoid schizophrenia, delusional disorders).
  • Mood (affective) disorders (e.g., bipolar affective disorder, depressive episode).
  • Neurotic, stress-related, and somatoform disorders (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder).
  • Behavioural syndromes associated with physiological disturbances and physical factors (e.g., eating disorders, non-organic sleep disorders).
  • Disorders of adult personality and behavior (e.g., paranoid personality disorder, transsexualism).
  • Mental retardation.
  • Disorders of psychological development (e.g., specific reading disorders, childhood autism).
  • Behavioural and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in childhood and adolescence (e.g., hyperkinetic disorders, conduct disorders, tic disorders).

Major and Minor Mental Illnesses

• Major illnesses, known as psychoses, include:
  • Schizophrenia (split personality).
  • Manic depressive psychosis (symptoms vary from excitement to depression).
  • Paranoia (undue and extreme suspicion).
• Minor illnesses include:
  • Neurosis or psychoneurosis (difficulty reacting normally to life situations).
  • Personality and character disorders (result of unfortunate childhood experiences and perceptions).

Causes of Mental Ill-health

• Mental illness is caused by multiple factors, including:
  • Organic conditions (e.g., cerebral arteriosclerosis, neoplasms, metabolic diseases).
  • Heredity (e.g., parental schizophrenia).
  • Social pathological causes (e.g., worries, anxieties, emotional stress, unhappy marriages, poverty, industrialization).
  • Environmental factors (e.g., toxic substances, psychotropic drugs, nutritional factors, minerals, infective agents, traumatic factors, radiation).

Crucial Points in the Lifecycles of Human Beings

• Prenatal period: Pregnancy is a stressful period, and women need help for their physical and emotional needs.
• First 5 years of life: The roots of mental health are in early childhood, and a warm, intimate relationship with parents is essential.
• School child: The school environment affects the mental health of the child, and proper teacher-pupil relationships are crucial.
• Adolescence: This transition is often stormy and fraught with dangers to mental health, and adolescents need to be recognized and understood.
• Old age: Mental health problems in the aged are often caused by organic conditions, economic insecurity, lack of a home, poor status, and insecurity.

Basic Needs of Humans

• Throughout life, humans need:
  • Affection
  • Belonging
  • Independence
  • Achievement
  • Recognition or approval
  • A sense of personal worth
  • Self-actualization