What is Mental Health?

Many people, when they hear the term mental health, think first of mental illness. But mental health is far more than merely the absence of mental illness.

Mental health is something all of us want for ourselves, whether we know it by name or not. When we speak of happiness, or peace of mind, or enjoyment, or satisfaction, we are usually talking about mental health.

There is no line that neatly divides the mentally healthy from the unhealthy.  There are many different degrees of mental health. No one characteristic by itself can be taken as evidence of good mental health, nor the lack of any one as any evidence of mental illness. And nobody has all the traits of good mental health all the time.

One way of describing mental health is to describe mentally healthy people. Just knowing what mental health is doesn't mean you can go out and be mentally healthy, but knowing can help you to think straight about it.

Mental health has to do with everybody's everyday life. It means the over-all way that people get along - in families, at school, on the job, at play, with associates, and in the community. It has to do with the way that each person harmonizes desires, ambitions, abilities, ideals, feelings and conscience in order to meet the demands of life. It has to do with:

     1.  How you feel about yourself.
     2.  How you feel about other people.
     3.  How you are able to meet the demands of life.

        - from a publication of The National Association for Mental Health   

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