What is Mental Health?

Being mentally healthy doesn’t just mean that you don’t have a mental health problem.

If you’re in good mental health, you can:

• make the most of your potential
• cope with life
• play a full part in your family, workplace, community and among friends.

Some people call mental health ‘emotional health’ or ‘well-being’ and it’s just as important as good physical health.

Mental health is everyone’s business. We all have times when we feel down or stressed or frightened. Most of the time those feelings pass. But sometimes they develop into a more serious problem and that could happen to any one of us.

Everyone is different. You may bounce back from a setback while someone else may feel weighed down by it for a long time.

Your mental health doesn’t always stay the same. It can change as circumstances change and as you move through different stages of your life.

There’s a stigma attached to mental health problems. This means that people feel uncomfortable about them and don’t talk about them much. Many people don’t even feel comfortable talking about their feelings. But it’s healthy to know and say how you’re feeling.

What are Mental Health problems?

Mental health problems range from the worries we all experience as part of everyday life to serious long-term conditions. The majority of people who experience mental health problems can get over them or learn to live with them, especially if they get help early on.

Mental health problems are usually defined and classified to enable professionals to refer people for appropriate care and treatment. But some diagnoses are controversial and there is much concern in the mental health field that people are too often treated according to or described by their label. This can have a profound effect on their quality of life. Nevertheless, diagnoses remain the most usual way of dividing and classifying symptoms into groups.

What is Good Mental Health?

Good mental health is not simply the absence of diagnosable mental health problems, although good mental health is likely to help protect against development of many such problems.

Good mental health is characterised by a person’s ability to fulfil a number of key functions and activities, including:

• the ability to learn
• the ability to feel, express and manage a range of positive and negative emotions
• the ability to form and maintain good relationships with others
• the ability to cope with and manage change and uncertainty.

(Thank you to The Mental Health Foundation)

If you need further information or would like to talk to someone then please contact our office on 01483 602998 or email appointments@relatewestsurrey.org.uk . We now offer web counselling for Relationships, Young People (10-18 years) and Sex Therapy