Defining Mental Health

We know that many people will experience some form of mental health difficulty in their life, such as low mood or anxiety. For others they may have a mental illness, a long-term illness such as schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder, which can impact someone's ability to cope with daily life and requires some form of intervention from health and social care services. When we discuss mental health and wellbeing and mental illness, we want it to be clear to everyone what we mean.

 

The phrase mental health is often misused and can sometimes be confused with the term mental illness. Over time, society has used these two phrases to mean the same thing although they are very different. Mental health refers to a person's emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing. Everybody has mental health, the same as everyone has physical health. Your own mental health can change throughout your life and is considered to be on a wellbeing continuum. It is unrealistic to expect to be happy all of the time and most people will face mental health challenges at some point in their life.

 

Mental health is determined by several factors such as:

• Your current circumstances, level of demands and life stressors as well as your resilience to confront these challenges.
• Your physical health conditions.
• Current or historically significant life events
• Your level and quality of sleep and rest.
• Your relationship with other people.
• Good healthy balanced diet.
• Environmental, social, or cultural influences.
• Your interaction in meaningful and enjoyable activity. Your interaction in activities that give you a sense of purpose and achievement.

 

A mental illness is considered to be a clinically significant disturbance in a person's cognition, emotional state, or behaviour that is associated with complex mental health challenges that aren't just a part of everyday life.

Everybody experiences ups and downs throughout their lives, and it is normal to experience negative emotions at times. There are many different types of mental health conditions with different signs and symptoms.

Mental illness is determined by the level of which someone is experiencing their symptoms and the detrimental impact this is having across areas of that person's life. Poor mental health and struggling to cope is very different from having a mental illness.

Mental illness refers to specific diagnostic conditions and can result in severely impairing a person's judgement and ability to function in their everyday life. Mental illness often requires a specialist level of treatment to support people to live with or in the absence of the condition.