ABSTRACT
Our mental health and psychological well-being are essential ingredients in achieving a good quality of life – in being happy and productive in our education, careers, and other pursuits, and in our relationships with friends, family, and significant others. So, how can we achieve good mental health? In this section, we’ll talk about the distinction between behavior, thinking, and emotions that are “normal” and those that are “abnormal” – and talk about the problems in using these words. We’ll answer common questions about three mental illnesses – major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and anorexia nervosa. And then we’ll describe the main treatments for mental illness, and offer advice, both on how to prevent mental illness – and have a better quality of life generally from a psychological perspective – and on what to do if you suspect that you or a loved one might be experiencing a mental illness. Finally, we’ll focus on the prevention of suicide.
Your mental health and psychological well-being are just as important as your physical health; indeed, as we learned in the last section, our physical and mental health are inextricably intertwined. And just as we learned about physical health, there’s a lot we can learn from psychological science about how to protect and preserve our mental health – and how (and when) to seek help when we need it. A focus on our mental health is essential to being “healthy” and “happy” and we’ll offer some specific suggestions on how you can be psychologically healthy. But first, let’s think about the problematic language we too often use to talk about mental health, and how we might reframe the discussion to reduce stigma, raise awareness, and expand access to treatment.
