mental illness definition- Characteristics of a mentally healthy individual-DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MENTAL HEALTH AND MENTAL ILLNESS

MENTAL ILLNESS

what is mental illness?

The term mental illness actually encompasses numerous psychiatric disorder, and just like illness that effect other parts of the body they can vary in severity.

Mental illness is a collective term that refers to all different types of mental conditions, including those that affect your mood, your thinking and your behaviour. To be classified as a mental illness, a condition must cause distress in your life and reduce your ability to function in one or more areas of your life, such as at work, in relationship or in social situations.

Some warning signs of mental illness:

· Marked personally change.

· Inability to cope with problems and daily activities.

· Strange ideas or delusions.

· Excessive anxiety.

· Prolonged feelings of sadness.

· Marked changes in eating or sleeping pattern.

· Thinking or about suicide.

· Extreme highs or low.

· Abuse of school or drugs.

· Excessive anger, hostility.

· Violent behaviour.

· Irrational fears.

A holistic model of mental health generally includes concepts based upon anthropological, educational, psychological, religious and sociological perspectives, as well as theoretical perspective from personality, social, clinical, health and developmental psychology.

An example of a wellness model includes one developed by Myers, Sweeney and witmers.

It includes five life tasks which are as follows.

· Essence or spirituality.

· Work and leisure,

· Friendship.

· Love.

· Self-direction.

Wellness Model Also Includes Twelve Sub Tasks Which Are As Follows:

1. Sense of worth.

2. Sense of control.

3. Realistic beliefs.

4. Emotional awareness.

5. Coping.

6. Problem solving and creativity.

7. Sense of humour.

8. Nutrition.

9. Exercise.

10. Self care.

11. Stress Management.

12. Gender identity & Cultural identity.

These task and subtasks are identified as characteristics of healthy functioning and a major component of wellness. The components provide a means of responding to the circumstance of life in a manner that promotes healthy functioning. Most of the US Population is not educated on Mental Health.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A MENTALLY HEALTHY INDIVIDUAL:

Characteristics of a mentally healthy individual are as follows:

· Posses the ability to accept themselves, others and nature. Stated another way, they have positive self concept and relate well to people and their environment.

· Able to form close relationship with others. Kindness, patience and compassion arte displayed for others.

· Perceive the word as it really i and as they really are.

· Able to solve their problems with their own efforts as much as possible.

· Knows and accept his or her strength and weaknesses.

· Have own personal identity.

· Able to appreciate and enjoy the life.

· Independent in thought and action and rely on personal standard of behaviour and values.

· Feel reasonably secure and adequate.

· Able to face the realities.

· Respect themselves.

· Behaviour is consistent as they respect and appreciate the rights of others.

· Develop reasonable and achievable goals in their life.

· Are happy with themselves and their lives.

· Do not worry excessively about the future, but they do plan ahead.

· Open and friendly, and do not have any difficulty meeting new people.

· Able to work at a job successfully and support themselves.

· Able to get enough sleep.

· Have a sense of worth, self-respect and dignity.

· Able to face the realities.

· Exhibits emotional maturity.

· Maintain their daily routine in a healthy way.

· Have positive attitude towards self, others and their work.

· Usually able to give a correct reading if asked to tell someone else mood or feelings.

· Remain in contact with reality.

· Perform their duties effectively and successfully.

· Develop philosophy in their life.

· Able to deal with stress and frustration in a healthy way.

· Able to show genuine concern for others.

· Able to maintain good relationship.

· Able to communicate with the people you care about.

· Able to feel good about you self.

· Involved with activities that are interesting to you.

· Able to appreciate individual differences.

· Able to determine the personal values by which you want to live.

· Try to enjoy life to the fullest.

· Do not waste time and energy worrying.

· Consider what other feel and have to say, but take action according to their own conviction.

· Do not feel distressed when other don’t like them.

· Organize their lives functionally so that important things get on time.

· Can love other people easily and without fear.

· Can find inner peace and strength when they need it.

· Laugh a lot, and are able to find humor in most situations.

· Act out of their own self-interested.

· Have strong and consistent set of values.

· Able to express their feelings and emotions.

· Able to face new ideas with an open-minded scepticism.

W.C. Meninger Summarized Emotional Maturity as the.

1. They have ability to deal constructively with reality.

2. Capacity to adapt to change.

3. Relative freedom from symptoms produced by tension and anxieties.

4. Capacity to find more satisfaction in giving than receiving.

5. Ability to relate to other people in a consistent manner with mutual satisfaction and happiness.

6. Capacity to redirect one’s instinctive hostile energy in to creative, constructive outlet.

7. Capacity to love.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MENTAL HEALTH AND MENTAL ILLNESS:

MENTAL HEALTH	MENTAL ILLNESS
Accept self and others	Feelings of inadequacy poor self concept
Ability to cope or tolerate stress	Inability to cope
Can return normal functioning if temporarily disturbed	Maladaptive behaviour
Ability to form closed and long lasting relationship	Inability to establish a meaningful relationship
Use sound judgement to make decision	Display poor judgement
Accept responsibility for actions	Inability to accept responsibility for action
Optimistic	Pessimistic
Recognizes limitation	Does not recognize limitations
Can function effectively and independently	Exhibits dependency needs because feeling of inadequacy
Able to perceive reality	Unable to perceive reality
Able to develop potential and utilize at fullest	Does not recognize potential and talent due to poor self concept
Able to solve problems	Unable to solve problems
Can delay immediate gratification	Desires or demand immediate gratification

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS:

1. Psychiatry: - Psychiatry is the medical speciality concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness.

Psychiatry :- Psychiatry is the branch of medicine concerned with the study, treatment, and prevention of disorders of the mind, including psychoses and neuroses, emotional maladjustment, etc.

Psychiatry :- Psychiatry is the branch of medicines that deals with the science and practice of treating mental, emotional, or behavioural disorders especially as originating in endogenous causes or resulting from faulty interpersonal relationship.

2. Psychiatrists:- Psychiatrist are MD’s who receive additional training and serve a supervised residency in their speciality. They may also have additional training in a psychiatric subspecialty, such as child psychiatry or neuropsychiatry; psychiatrist can prescribe medication, which psychologist cannot do.

According to the American Psychiatry Association “A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental illnesses and substances use disorder. The psychiatry is thus the mental health professional and physician best qualified to distinguish between physical and psychological causes of both mental and physical distress.”

3. Psychiatric Nursing:- Psychiatric Nursing is the branch of nursing concerned with the prevention, care, and cure of mental disorders and their sequelae. It uses theories of human behaviour as it scientific framework and requires the use of the self as its art or expression in nursing practice.