Mental?

What is Mental Health?

The term “mental” comes from the early 15th century, from the Middle French word mental, from Late Latin mentalis “of the mind,” from Latin mens (genitive, mentis) “mind”. In turn this comes from the IndoEuropean base stem *men– “to think” (confer Sanskrit matih “thought, mind,” Gothic gamunds, Old English gemynd “memory, remembrance,” Modern English mind (n.)).

“Health” comes from the Old English word hælþ meaning “wholeness, a being whole, sound or well,” again from an IndoEuropean word *kailo-  meaning “whole, uninjured, of good omen” (confer Old English hal “hale, whole”; in Old Norse it is heill “healthy”; from the Old English halig, the Old Norse helge “holy, sacred”, and ultimately the Old English word hælan “to heal”). [Source: Online  Etymology Dictionary etymonline.com.]

Mental health is a state of uninjured wholeness of mind. A common legal definition of mental health is that it is the absence of mental disorder, defect, or disease. Another way to define mental health is that it is optimal functioning of the mind. These definitions are self-referential and can be easily attacked. To say mental health is what we declare it to be is silly.

What is Mental Illness?

“Mental Illness” is equally difficult to define: an acquired loss of statistically normal thinking, feeling, and/or perceptual experience. Some mental illnesses have clear biological underpinnings and identifiable brain pathology. Some reflect the interaction of changes in genes with the environment. Some occur in ways that reflect the effects on the brain of a physical illness. Unfortunately, most of this kind of evidence remains detectable only with highly refined instruments. At present, descriptions of mental illness reflect careful summaries of abnormal behavior symptoms that cluster together in carefully-defined populations. These definitions have been studied at length in patients with the conditions, and the definitions are improved every five to ten years. Suggested definitions are published in books, the most accepted of which is one released in 2013 from the American Psychiatric Association, known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. A sixth edition is forthcoming in a few years.