Wednesday 7 September 2011

4 continua of mental health

The two standard ones are psychopathology and distress. The latter is a
complicated one given the third one I've been thinking about.

The third one is subjective report of mental unwellness. I separate it
from psychological distress because I assume psychological distress is a
feminised continuum based upon affect and particularly low mood.

Mental unwellness can be concurrent with low mood or it can be separate.
This third continua is about individual measures. It is about pure
subjective report of mental unwellness. It is determined not by
psychiatrists or psychologists. It is defined and determined by an
individual.

The fourth continua is flourishing...or perhaps thriving. Essentially it
is achievement of potential - either for the individual or for society.
What that separation is about is a person with a high capability for
physics who wants to be basketball player. Their flourishing in
society's valuation is for them to be a physicist. Their flourishing for
themselves is to be a basketball player.

the film Happy Gilmore might explain this better. The main character
wants to be an hockey player but he's rubbish. He ends up learning golf
and he's amazing. His bipolar tendencies - that's how I see Happy(the
main character's name) - abate as the film progresses. This is one of
the key changes in the film. His psychopathology reduces. He flourishes
at something he doesn't want to flourish in. The film doesn't really
explore his distress levels apart from the harm to his grandmother by
Shooter Magavern (the bad guy). I don't remember the p[arts of the film
which explain his report of subjective unwellness.

In the end he gets everything he wants but this is a film and doesn't
explore the true complexities of the mind. I don't think there was a
Happy Gilmore 2 which explores the problem of the hedonic treadmill. The
latter is perhaps one of the reasons that few things work on long term
followup once treatment has ended.

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We It comes in part from an appreciation that no one can truly sign their own work. Everything is many influences coming together to the one moment where a work exists. The other is a begrudging acceptance that my work was never my own. There is another consciousness or non-corporeal entity that helps and harms me in everything I do. I am not I because of this force or entity. I am "we"