Concepts of mental health: definitions and challenges.

摘要

It is widely accepted that mental health and mental well-being are critical to a happy, satisfactory and meaningful life. However, attempts to improve the mental health of patients and the population at large have been met with several obstacles. The common thread underlying most of these obstacles is the basic lack of understanding, or a common medical conceptualization of the mind. As the conceptualization of mental health has far-reaching implications in several domains of life, such as law, religion, state policy, politics, personal life, social life, and so on, the understanding of the mind among the people and medical professionals has been wilfully and unwillingly influenced by various vested interests.