What comes to mind when we hear the term “mental health?” We often consider mental unwellness to mean the presence of undesirable qualities such as anger, depression, guilt, or other negative emotions. Being mentally ill might also mean being a threat to oneself or others.
If these tendencies are not present, suppressed, or visible, we may consider a person to be in a more or less healthy state. This is a narrow way of discussing mental health because we are defining it by a negative condition. To say that mental health consists of the presence of good characteristics is to define it in positive terms. We will understand mental health better if we have a positive and objective definition of mental well-being.
Jesus described this health in terms of a person either “having life” or being “dead,” terms used to refer to people alive from a physical point of view. A person who is truly alive and fruitful is exceptional, and these individuals are the light of the world. Spiritual vitality and not belief in a doctrine is what “having life” means. Many people who are about their worldly business in truth resemble a barren fig tree and are not truly aware and therefore not healthy. Mental health in this sense is not the norm but the exception. The goal of conventional psychology it seems, is not true mental health but adjustment to a minimum standard.
Let us expand our concept of mental wellness to that of well-being for the whole person. This considers the entirety of what it means for a person to be well, embracing the body and mind as well as the character and spiritual state of the individual. In light of this definition, we can understand mental health in relation to other things, including excellence, integrity, productivity, intelligence, and self-control. Moral and spiritual is mental health. A morally and mentally healthy person is one who expresses excellence. An excellent person does not merely pass a test of mental health, but flourishes and stands out as unique, capable, and successful.
Mental illness in today’s world is increasing and is not improving by treatment with medications or by a true understanding of psychology. This means that many medical practices are based on error and must be discontinued and replaced with sound practices. Whether mental illness is produced by the negative influence of new technologies, the lack of a God-centered culture, or the overeating of processed food (who knows the real cause?), we will not solve it by watching the news, increasing funds, or putting more trust in the medical establishment.
What is certain is that our human problems will not be helped by clinging to the latest form of technology or a new medication as the long-sought solution. We must change our ideas. A human problem needs a human solution, and the solution will involve a true understanding of what it means to be human and structuring everyday life after the pattern of the unchanging truth.
Applied Unificationism 
Recent Comments