Definition Of Mental Health Continuum

Mental health continuum model people from all walks of life experience stress in their personal and work lives.

Definition of mental health continuum. Depending on the internal and external faculties of a person at any time he can lie at one point of the continuum and shift position as his situation improves or deteriorates. As a first responder you encounter stressful events at work that can have an impact on your physical and mental health. A diagnosis of the presence of mental health described as flourishing and the absence of mental health characterized as languishing is applied to data from the 1995 midlife in the united. As a result others have tried to explain the difference by talking about a continuum where mental health is at one end of the spectrum represented by feeling good and functioning well while mental health conditions or mental illness are at the other represented by symptoms that affect people s thoughts feelings or behaviour.

Our continuum of mental health model inspired by canada s the working mind illustrates this idea. People have also tried to explain the difference between mental health and mental health conditions by talking about a range or a continuum where mental health is at one end represented by feeling good and functioning well through to severe symptoms of mental health conditions at the other. The short form of the mental health continuum mhc sf is derived from the long form mhc lf which consisted of seven items measuring emotional well being six 3 item scales or 18 items total that measured the six dimensions of ryff s 1989 model of psychological well being and. Mental health continuum model healthy reacting injured ill signs and indicators s normal mood fluctuations s calm confident s good sense of humour s takes things in stride s can concentrate focus s consistent performance s normal sleep patterns s energetic physically well stable weight s physically and socially active s performing well s limited alcohol consumption no.

Here is a basic schematic of the health illness continuum with a focus on the mental but we could substitute the biophysiological and make a very similar claim. So mental health is not a binary state you are not either mentally healthy or ill. The national institutes of health explains that for patients with chronic or life threatening diseases such as cancer the continuum of care begins at diagnosis and continues through the end of life. Definition the mental health continuum is a range having mental health and mental illness at the two extreme ends.