deviation from ideal mental health

• what is deviation from ideal mental health

  jahoda noted that when diagnosing physical illness, we often look for the absence of signs of physical health

  he said that we should do the same for mentalhealth
• what are the 6 criteria

  positive self-attitude

  self-actualisation

  resistance to stress

  autonomy

  accurate perception of reality

  environmental mastery
• strength - highly comprehensive

  jahoda's concept of ideal mental health includes a range of criteria. it covers most reasons why we might seek help with mental health. this means that an individuals mental health can be discussed meaningfully either a range of professionals who might take different theoretical views. this means that this provides a checklist against which we can asses ourselves and others and discuss psychological issues with a range of professionals.
• limitation- unclear of how many of the criteria need to be lacking before an individual is judged to be abnormal.

  if it is the case that just one needs to be lacking then most of us are abnormal to some degree and very few individuals posses all six criteria. this suggests it has an unrealistic criteria and requires clarification
• limitation- tries to apply the principles of physical health to psychological health

  can mental illness be detected in the same way? In general physical illness has a cause, e.g virus or an infection. some mental illnesses do have a physical cause but many don't. therefore it is unlikely that we could diagnose mental abnormality in the same way that we can diagnose physical abnormality
• limitation- cultural relativism

  one weakness us that jahodas criteria for ideal mental health are based upon the values of individualistic cultures. if we were to apply them to individuals from collectivistic cultures, we would likely find a higher incidence of abnormality. e.g self actualisation is relevant to individualistic not collectivist who strive for the greater good of the community. is only useful for certain cultural groups