ABSTRACT
'Mental health' is not dependent on what sort of causes, in what parts of the body, create the trouble. In the case of mental health, this means that educators and social psychologists must be particularly careful not only about their own, or their society's, uncritical way of thinking, but also of the 'definitions'–which are really often lists of symptoms–which psychologists put forward. The way in which a mentally unhealthy person fails to 'live normally' is centrally connected with the idea of irrational thought and behaviour. This chapter discusses a number of words which carry an implication of a certain degree of health or illness. It aims to distinguish the concept of mental health from other concepts, from the idea of deficiency, and stresses the notion of malfunction. Rationality–and to some extent mental health–depends on maintaining the notion of moral rules: it will not do to treat children who are genuinely bad or naughty as if they were mad or mentally ill.
