Deviation from Ideal Mental Health Flashcards
What is deviation from ideal mental health?
-First put together by Jahoda in 1958 and turns the traditional notion of abnormality on its head by looking any positives
-Mental health rather than mental illness
-Identified 6 major criteria
What are Jahoda’s first 3 criteria for optimal mental health and what do they say?
1) Positive attitudes towards self
-Having a positive self concept and a sense of identity, Self respect, confidence, reliance and acceptance. viewing self realistically and objectively
2) Self Actualisation of yourself
-Maslow’s ideas that we all have potential and should all strive to fulfilling this and MH problems occur when we can’t fulfil our true potential
3) Resistance to stress
-Ability to tolerate anxiety w/o disintegrating, have good coping methods to deal with stressful situations
What are Jahoda’s last 3 criteria for optimal mental health and what do they say?
4) Personal autonomy
-Person relies on themselves and are their own source, self-contained and depends on their own internal and external resources, ability to make own decisions without bias to support others
5) Accurate perception of reality
-Seeing oneself in realistic terms without distorting what they really are living in, can’t be taken advantage of easily
6) Adapting to the environment
-being competent in all areas of life, at work, relationships, friendships and leisure activities, being flexible and able to adapt and adjust to life experiences that we may face
what are examples of not following Jahoda’s criteria?
Agoraphobia
-unable to leave the house and an overall fear of socialising, therefore they find it hard to self-actualise
Depression
-Lack of positive attitude towards self, draw illogical conclusions which would suggest also the individual not having a inaccurate perception of reality
What is a strength of deviation from ideal mental health
Positive approach
-Offers alternative approach on the term mental illness and instead offers mental health
-Focuses on positive behaviours rather than negative ones, holistic approach
-Never really taken up by metal health professionals but did have influence in the positive psychology movement which is just humanistic psychology
Definition has been influential in changing negative perceptions of mental health
What are 3 weaknesses of deviation from ideal mental health
Resistance to stress - Possible benefits to stress
-Some people work better and more efficiently in stressful situations
-A student would revise probably the best the night before an exam knowing the stress of it and that its the next day
Therefore, healthy levels of stress can be be seen as an indicator of mental wellbeing and a motivation to succeed
problems classifying mental illness in the same way you can physical illness
-Physical illnesses have physical causes we can measure with tests and diagnostics the same can not be done mentally
-mental problems are usually a cause of a poor life experience and symptoms do not alway present themselves in a detectable way using objective measures
Unlikely that we could diagnose the mental issue as easily as physical making it harder to treat which weakens the validity
imposed etic and cultural bias
-Idea of mental health is culture bound and Jahoda’s ideas were based on western attitudes
-Thus raising issues with imposed etic and if it will have the same effect on other cultures just because it did in the West
-In US and UK you learn to strive to full potential and succeed but other places like Asia, you are more forced into a life chosen for you ie. marrying a specific individual
Individuals in these cultures would be classed as abnormal by this definition showing how hard it is to accurately diagnose mental illness
