Deviation from ideal mental health

• Proposed by Jahoda (1958) and looks at the idea of mental health rather than mental illnesses. Jahoda identified 6 major criteria for optimal living which she believed promoted psychological health and well-being, enabling an individual to feel happy (no distress) and behave competently
• The criteria follows as such: self-attitudes, personal growth and self-actualisation (the extent to which an individual fulfils their true potential), integration, autonomy (independence, self-reliance, ability to make personal decisions, having an accurate perception of reality and mastery of the environment. She claimed that anyone lacking any of these qualities would be vulnerable to mental disorders and thus being deemed abnormal. The more characteristics they fail to meet and the further they are from realising them, the more abnormal they are.
• A major limitation of the Deviation from ideal mental health definition for explaining abnormality is that it suffers from cultural relativism. For example most of Jahoda's criteria are culture bound to Western European and North American cultures. For example personal growth and self-actualisation is a prime goal in individualistic cultures but not in some eastern collectivist cultures, where in some cultures elders plan the young person's future for them, so it may be considered abnormal to for them to pursue individual goals.
• Continue weakness: suffers from cultural relativism What's more collectivist cultures have an overwhelmingly large focus on communal goals and behaviours and thus autonomy would not be seen as normal as it deviates from the desired collective goal.
• continue weakness: cultural relativism This clearly undermines deviation from ideal mental health as a strong definition for abnormality as it may not be externally valid as it creates problems for people from one culture living within another cultural group as their behaviour may be optimal in their culture but not in other cultures, and so we should be cautious when applying it outside the culture it was created in. Thus, psychologists must be sensitive to such cultural differences when defining abnormality.
• Another limitation of the definition is that Jahoda's criteria are quite difficult to measure. For example, we don't fully know how easy it is to assess capacity for personal growth. This clearly undermines the definition, as it may be an interesting concept but not really useful when it comes to identifying abnormality as the criteria are too subjective to be applied consistently by psychologists. This could pose problems for psychologists using the definition, as one may identify abnormality whilst one may not. Therefore, this definition is not a reliable means of identifying abnormality.
• Continuing weakness: criteria is difficult to measure As such patients who may benefit from treatment may not be given the opportunity to access it.
• One weakness is that the characteristics of ideal mental health are too idealistic. Evidence to support this comes from Maslow (1968) who argued that only a few people ever achieve'self-actualisation', and so the criteria is set too high. This is a limitation, because the criteria are not adequate in depicting 'normal' behaviour and so based on this definition and its requirements, most people would be considered abnormal.