mental health

Mental health is defined as the state of balance between a person and his / her socio-cultural environment. This state guarantees the individual his labor, intellectual and social participation to achieve a well-being and some quality of life. Although the concept of mental health arises by analogy to physical health, it deals with more complex phenomena.

That said, the World Health Organization (WHO) has ensured that there is no official definition regarding mental health, since it is always influenced by cultural differences and subjectivity.

In any case, it can be said that mental health is a state of emotional and psychological well-being, through which the individual is able to make use of his emotional and cognitive abilities, social functions and to respond to the ordinary requests of the Daily life.

It should be noted that the absence of a mental illness does not imply that the individual enjoys good mental health. Tracking a person's daily behavior is the best way to know the state of their mental health.

It should also be borne in mind that mental health is not a dimension that can be dissociated from physical health, as the famous Latin phrase "mens sana in corpore sano" (a sound mind in a sane body) reminds us. There are obvious links between mental and biological pathologies.

Psychologists argue that mental health should be promoted at the individual level (with the motivation of the person's own resources through stimuli in self-esteem), at community level (with a social cohesion) and at the official level (with state and Access to public health).