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MENTAL HEALTH: POSITIVE DIGRESSION

Health, like illness is indicated when a set of symptoms at a specific level are present for a specified duration.  This health coincides with distinctive brain and social functioning.  According to Freud, normalcy is the capacity to love, work and play.  Current psychological researchers refer this capacity as “mental health”.  Mental health is a state of successful performance of mental function resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationship with people and the ability to adapt to change and to cope with adversity.

Ryff and Keyes (1995) combined many principles of pleasure to define complete mental health.  Optimal functioning is the combination of emotional wellbeing, social wellbeing and psychological wellbeing (Ryff &Keyes, 1995; Keyes & Lopus, 2002; Keyes & Magyar Moe, 2003).  State of mental functioning will involve the presence and absence of symptoms of emotional, psychological and social wellbeing as well as absence of recent mental illness.

Emotional wellbeing refers to subjective wellbeing.  It is defined as the presence of positive affect and satisfaction with life and the absence of negative affect.  Social wellbeing includes acceptance, actualization, coherence, contribution and integration.  Psychological wellbeing incorporates self-acceptance, personal growth, purpose in life, environmental mastery, autonomy and positive relations with others.

INTRODUCING MENTAL HEALTH

Most of the treatments for the mental illness including the medicines are temporary and are only partially effective.  A variety of effective therapies for reducing the severity and number of patient symptoms are available now.  Invention of SSRI’s helped the medical model to reduce the severity of symptoms, even though there are some exceptional cases.  Still, mental illness continues to disable individuals, family, societies and countries.  Remission of depression symptoms among many patients even after taking SSRI is partial or short lived.   Huge investments in the area of the study of etiology and treatment of mental disorders have not reduced the inflow of patients.  One-third of the patients are identified to have very low response to the drug treatment.  Period of remission from most therapies is brief.  60% to 70% of patients with unipolar major depression relapse within 6 months of symptom remission.

Mental illness reduces productivity and costs billions of dollars each year due to lost wages, medical costs and disability claims.  Hence, while continuing the treatments for those who have broken down, another focus has to be given to the prevention of breaking down.  Attention has to be made in the direction towards mental health promotion, as an aim itself.  The challenges that lie ahead are

a) Reducing the prevalence of mental illness

b) Preventing the early onset in young adults lives

c) Prolong remissions following the therapies

d) Reducing the recurrence of mental illness, throughout the life course

How Positive Psychology works?

Giving importance to the positive aspects does not mean to ignore the problems of life. Positive Psychology, on the other hand, suggests to look at the strengths and the resources without getting away from the reality of experiences.  Strengths are the best things, our life may offer, to manage the weakness and to repair the worst things in life.  Hence, Positive Psychologists are those who help the people to overcome pathology and to overcome stress.  They see vital balance in the way that people are understood and treated.  

Referring to the example of the story of "Watchology", mentioned by Lauraking (2007), to learn how a watch works, it is better to explore a working watch rather than a teathered and broken watch.  Let psychologists concentrate on what the individuals have instead of what has been missing.

FLOURISH HYPOTHESIS

To flourish is to live optimally and to experience the good things in life such as personal growth, generativity and resilience.
The ratio of positive to negative affect is a key predictor of human flourishing.
The ratio is 2.9:1
For each negative affect experience, one mush have 3 positive affect experiences over the course of time to keep moving forward in life.  Researchers in this area claims that the ratio is real for the individuals, marriages and business teams.
Positive to negative affect ratio up to 11.6:1 will promot flourishing.  Ratios beyond 11.6:1 may lead to disintegration of flourishing.