Deviation from ideal mental health

• Marie Jahoda argued as we define physical health problems with the absence of healthy signs and so we should do the same for mental health: the absence of good mental health symptoms is abnormal, indicating a mental disorder
• Jahoda identifed categories of a good mental health:

  • Self-attitudes, having a high self-esteem and a strong 💪 sense of identity
  • Personal growth 💹 and self-actualisation, reaching full potential
  • Integration, e.g. being able to cope with stressful situations.
  • Autonomy: independent and self-regulating
  • Having an accurate perception of reality
  • Mastery of the environment

  The absence of these criteria indicates abnormality and possibly a mental disorder
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  Unrealistic criteria

  According to Jahoda's criteria of ideal mental health, most of us are abnormal! Arguably her criteria is too idealistic,it is rare to anyone to fulfil all these traits. It is unclear how many of these traits are need to be lacking before someone is judged as abnormal.

  This limits the approach as it is arguably not 🚫 useful to asses abnormality
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  It is a positive approach 


  This approach focuses on the positives; focusing on what is ideal and desirable,rather than what is undesirable. Jahoda's positive approach largely influenced the positive psychology movement. For example, the widely used humanistic approach was in accord with Jahoda's work.

  This adds strength to this explanation of abnormality as its positive outlook in life 🧬 has been influential in the humanistic field of psychology
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  Equates mental health and physical health

  Jahoda tried to apply the principles of physical health to mental health.

  • Physical illnesses generally have causes such as a virus 🦠 or a bacterial infection. This makes them easy to detect and diagnose.
  • However, the majority of mental disorders don't have physical causes but are the consequence of life 🧬 experiences.

  This greatly limits the approach as it is not 🚫 likely we can diagnose mental abnormality in the same way we diagnose physical issues
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  Cultural relativism

  A lot of Jahoda's health criteria is culture-bound.

  • For example, self-actualisation is relevant to people in individualist cultures but not 🚫 collectivist.
  • In collectivist cultures, people care about the needs of a group and not 🚫 just themselves.
  • If we apply Jahoda's criteria to people from collectivist cultures, we will likely find a higher rate of abnormality.

  This limits this definition as it is only applicable to certain cultural groups.
• there are various theoretical descriptions of ‘normality’ and if someone does not fit within this theoretical idea of normality their behaviour is abnormal.

  An example of a theoretical description of abnormality is the one suggested by Marie Jahoda in 1958.

  She suggested that there were 6 criteria that needed to be fulfilled for ideal mental health (‘normality’). The six criteria were a positive attitude towards the self, self-actualisation, autonomy, resistance to stress, environmental mastery and an accurate perception of reality.