Mental Health

THE ESSENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH. Healthy humans are able:

- to love and be loved (without  this asset, humans, more than all other mammals, fail to thrive);

- to embrace change – and face fear in a spirit of practical optimism;

- to take risks, free from endless worst - case - scenario - gazing;

- to satisfy the requirements of the group – if the person so desire;

- to deploy the joy of living, and a wide range of emotional responses, including negative emotions, such as anger ( pain’s most motivating antidote);

- to  make contact with reality: not too rarely or too often. Human kind cannot bear very much reality;

- to say “I was wrong”, and learn from experience;

- to have enough self- knowledge to heal the self and others – but not so much as to become demoralized;

- to inhabit fantasy worlds, enabling hope and creativity to flourish;

- to feel a sense of security, not always predicated on one’s status in society;

- to enjoy self-expression, balanced by sensitivity to others’ vulnerabilities;

-  to feel a sense of awe and to risk enchantment ( and hence disenchantment);

- to gratify bodily desires and eventually to be free from desire. He who no longer desires anything for himself is both free and good, yet not superior;

- to have a sense of humour to compensate if the above is unavailable.

( Oxford Handbook of Clinical Specialties, Oxford 2011, p. 314)

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