Mental Illness, Mental Wellbeing, and Positive Psychology

Awareness of mental illness is increasing - but when it comes to understanding mental health, there's a lot we are still getting wrong.

Mental Illness vs Mental Wellbeing

Mental illness is an increasingly prevalent topic in public conversation. Positive media coverage of mental health related issues has doubled in some western countries since the early 2000s (4) and seeking treatment for disorder is gradually becoming normalised (1). Despite this increasing awareness, misconceptions of mental illness remain common in the public consciousness. This article aims to target one of those key misconceptions: The perception that mental illness is binary.

Mental illness is often viewed as an either/or condition – you either have it, or you don't. This lens is vastly inconsistent with the current scientific understanding of mental health.

Mental health is actually a spectrum, just like physical health (2).

Let’s break this down:

• In a binary approach to physical health, we can describe a situation where Person A has a physical health condition, such a broken hip, and Person B has no physical health conditions. In this situation, we would define Person B as being "physically healthy", due to the absence of a physical health condition, and Person A as "physically unhealthy".

• However, what if this model had three people, instead of two? Person A, with a broken hip, Person B, who has no physical health conditions but eats poorly and rarely exercises, and Person C, who also has no physical health conditions but eats well and exercises regularly.

• Under the binary model, Person B and Person C are both categorised as physically healthy, simply through virtue of not having a physical health condition. This approach doesn’t acknowledge that you can also have different "positive" states of health (such as being fit) as well as negative. A focus on health as the absence of negative conditions doesn't allow us to identify positive states of health to strive for, nor does it allow us to discuss behaviours, such as a good diet and exercise, that might allow us to achieve those states.

• This is the issue with the popular binary perspective of mental health. In formal psychological study, we don't always discuss mental health in terms of either having a mental illness or not having one – there is a whole spectrum of health that is influenced by healthy habits (the mental health equivalent of good diet and exercise). In this spectrum approach, we often refer to mental health as mental wellbeing, to reinforce that there is variability in how healthy you can be, as well as how unhealthy. Just like with physical health, you can strive to achieve positive states of mental health, through ways that don't just focus on the absence of having a disorder.

Positive Psychology and the Self-Care Library

Positive psychology is the study of the healthy habits that grow your mental wellbeing. This gives us a better understanding of the strategies we can put in place in our day to day lives to improve our mental wellbeing, and lower our risk of developing mental illness later in life (3). The point of these strategies is not to eliminate negative emotions, nor is it to be happy all the time. That would be unrealistic, and ultimately undesirable - life is not always positive, and negative emotions can be healthy and normal responses to our struggles. Positive psychology strategies are instead designed to strengthen our emotional resilience, and improve our ability to cope with unpredictable and stressful situations. Not all of these strategies suit everyone, in the same way that some people prefer running to cycling, or broccoli to kale. However, they are all grounded in science, with an evidence-base to support their efficacy.

We hope that this library is useful to help you build up your wellbeing, particularly in light of the coronavirus crisis.

Our Most Important Note

It’s important to take a pause here and point out that mental illness is nobody’s fault. The origins of mental illness are incredibly complicated and determined by a mix of genetic and environmental factors, which we can't always control. This library will be comprised of an array of self-care strategies that are designed to build mental wellbeing – similar to diet and exercise advice, but for your brain. Just as you wouldn’t treat a broken hip with heavy weight exercises, these self-care strategies are not a substitute for professional mental health treatment. We always encourage anyone with mental health concerns to consult a medical professional for guidance on treatment pathways that are right for them.

References:

1. Bonabi, H., Muller, M., Adjacic-Gross, V., Eisele, J., Rodgers, S., Seifritz, E., Rossler, W., & Rusch, N. (2016). Mental health literacy, attitudes to help seeking, and perceived need as predictors of mental health service use: A longitudinal study. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 204(4), 321 – 324. Doi: 10.1097/NMD.0000000000000488

2. Froh, J., Huebner, E., Youssef, A., & Conte, V. (2010). Acknowledging and appreciating the full spectrum of the human condition: School Psychology’s (limited) focus on positive psychological functioning. Psychology in the Schools, 48(2), Doi: 10.1002/pits.20530

3. Slade, M. (2010). Mental illness and well-being: The central importance of positive psychology and recovery approaches. BMC Health Services Research, 10(26). Doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-10-26

4. Whitley, R., & Wang, J. (2016). Good news? A longitudinal analysis of newspaper portrayals of mental illness in Canada 2005 to 2015. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 62(4), 278 – 285. Doi: 10.1177/0706743716675856