There are many definitions that try to explain mental health from a variety of perspectives: individual experience, work environment, social contribution, medical model, etc.

Most people will understand mental health through their own experience of mental wellbeing which is described in subjective terms.

As common experience, people tend to feel well when their physiological, psychological and spiritual needs are met and they have shelter, food, they feel safe, loved and appreciated, and they can develop positive and nurturing relationships with themselves, others and the world around them.

People with mental health problems are born this way

It is impossible to establish with accuracy what caused a mental health condition.

Mental health is caused by chemical unbalance

There are many factors that contribute to the development of a mental condition:

• biological causes like brain injury, genetic inheritance and chemical unbalance
• psychological factors like traumatic or stressful experiences, dysfunctional learned associations and cognitions, distorted perceptions and maladaptive behaviours
• social and cultural factors such as poverty, disadvantaged social class, unemployment, discrimination/prejudice, inequality/unfairness
• spiritual disconnection from self and the others

Meetal Illness  has always been defined by the culture around its era. Mental health problems have been recognised from ancient times but we’ve seen a shift in how the humanity has looked at the cause of mental illness. The initial “abnormal behaviours” were attributed to supernatural causes and people were killed because of their manifestations. 400 BC the Greek physician Hippocrates founded medicine and over the past 2 milenia medicine has evolved including the new science “psychiatry” concerned with the diagnostic and treatment of mental diseases.

Over the past five decades mental illness has been described through the Diagnostical and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) issued by the American Psychitric Association, curerntly at its 5th eddition, and through the International Classification of Diseases system (ICD), issued by the World Health Organisation, currently at the 10th eddition with the 11th coming into effect on January 2022.

DSM describes a number of diseases grouped in categories:

Psychosis (schizophrenia, 

Bipolar disorder

Mood disorders 

Anxiety disorders