ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how play can provide and support viable, relatively inexpensive, alternative treatment options and how play can promote and support mental wellness and psychological healing throughout the lifespan. Play has a major contribution to make to the mental wellness and emotional wellbeing of individuals. Mental health and wellbeing are global health priorities with vast cost implications for the economy, political and social stability. Mental wellbeing has often been linked to the concept of happiness. Cultural relativism supports the view that beliefs about what constitutes abnormality differ between cultures and their sub-groups. Some cultures emphasize the religious or spiritual aspects of mental illness and might look for a religious rather than a medical solution to a psychological problem. The Mental Health Foundation has produced a publication for people in later life who are approaching retirement or who have recently retired from work, which offers ten practical ways to stay mentally well in later life.
