Signs Of Mental Health

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Mental health

October 10 is World Mental Health Day.

As noted on the WHO website, mental health is not just the absence of a mental disorder. It is defined as a state of well-being in which each person can fulfill his or her own potential, cope with normal life stresses, work productively and productively, and contribute to the life of their community.

Below are 16 Elements of Mental and Emotional Health from American psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams:

1. Ability to love (partner, children …). To be able to be in a relationship, to open up to another person, to love him for who he is, with all the advantages and disadvantages. Do not idealize or depreciate. Be able to give, not take.

2. Ability to work. Not only in the literal sense - in the office, at work, for a salary. It is important to create, create, bring something new to the world, realize your creative potential. Realizing that everything you do should have meaning and significance not only for you personally, but also for other people.

3. Ability to play. It is about the ability of adults to "play" with words, symbols, be able to use metaphors, allegories, humor, symbolize their experience and enjoy it. Psychologists note a frightening trend: we stop playing. Our games are transformed from “active” into “detached-observant”. We dance less, we sing less, we go in for sports and more and more watch how others do it. I wonder what the consequences will be?..

4. Safe relationship. Psychoanalyst John Bowlby described three types of attachment: normal, anxious (it is difficult for a person to endure loneliness, so he "sticks" to a significant object) and avoidance (we can easily let go of the other, but at the same time remain with tremendous anxiety inside). Subsequently, another type of attachment emerged - disorganized: people "stick" to the object of attachment and at the same time "bite" it. Unfortunately, attachment disorders are very common. However, it can be changed, including with the help of psychotherapy.

5. Autonomy. Its disadvantage is expressed primarily in the fact that people do not do what they really want. They don't even have time to listen to themselves and choose what they would like to want. At the same time, the desire to be autonomous and to be able to decide something remains. And then a person tries to control at least something, for example, his own weight. In severe cases, this leads to anorexia.

6. Ability to stay in touch with yourself. More precisely, with all sides of one's own "I": both good and bad, both pleasant and not causing joy. Which, in particular, helps to survive conflicts without falling apart. It is very important to keep in yourself three images: who you were once, who you are now and who you will become in ten years. Consider and integrate what is given by nature with what we ourselves have been able to develop in ourselves.

7. Ability to recover from stress. If a person has enough strength when he is faced with stress, he does not break down and does not get sick, but finds a way to adapt to a new situation.

8. Realistic self-concept. Many people assess themselves too harshly, criticize, demean. Or vice versa - they have high self-esteem. Part of the reason is that parents praise their children, wanting to have the very best, including the "best" children. But unfounded praise, devoid of love and warmth, instills in children a sense of emptiness. They do not understand who they really are, and often act as if they have a right to special treatment, although, in fact, they have not earned this.

9. The system of values. It is important that a person understands ethical norms, their meaning, while being flexible in following them.

10. Ability to withstand the heat of emotions. Feel them, but do not act under their influence. Staying in touch is important not only with your emotions, but also with your thoughts and reflections - your rational part.

11. Reflection. The ability to look at yourself from the outside. People who are capable of reflection see what exactly is their problem and try to solve it by helping themselves as effectively as possible.

12. Mentalization. Those who have this ability understand that others are completely separate individuals, with their own characteristics, personal and psychological structure. It is easier for them to realize that sometimes an offense at someone's words and actions is caused rather by their personal, personal experience and personality traits, and not by the desire of another person to hurt someone.

13. Possession of a sufficient number of protective mechanisms and flexibility in their use.

14. Balance between what we do for ourselves and for our environment. It is important to be yourself, to take care of your own interests, but do not forget to take into account the interests of others.

15. Feeling of vitality. The ability to feel alive. Psychoanalyst Donald Woods Winnicott wrote that a person can function normally, but still be as if inanimate. Psychoanalyst Andre Green also wrote about inner deadness.

16. Ability to accept what we cannot change. To be able to sincerely and honestly be sad about the fact that it is impossible to change. Accept our limitations and mourn what we would like to have but fail.