What is Mental Health and Mental Illness?
Most of us use these terms interchangeably. It is important to remember that health and illness are not the same things. When we think about our physical well-being, we don’t just lump together these terms. Being “healthy” means having good physical health, and being “ill” means having a condition that needs care or treatment, like getting the flu or suffering an injury.
Mental health is a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.
Mental illness is a recognized, medically diagnosable illness that results in the significant impairment of an individual’s cognitive, affective or relational abilities. Mental disorders result from biological, developmental and/or psychosocial factors and can be managed using approaches comparable to those applied to physical disease (i.e., prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation).
