Ideal mental health and Social/Cultural norms deviations

Deviation from ideal mental health

Occurs when someone does not meet a set of criteria for good mental health

Deviation from social/cultural norms

Concerns behaviour that is different from the accepted standards of behaviour in a community or society.

Jahoda 1958

Criteria for good mental health:

• Personal self-actualisation - Developing to your full capability.

• Reality perception - Having objective and realistic world views.

• Autonomy - Being independent and able to regulate your own behaviour

• Integration - Able to cope with stress

• Self-attitudes - High self-esteem and strong sense of identity.

• Environmental mastery - Able to love, function and adjust to new situations.

There is some overlap between “Deviation from ideal mental health” and other definitions.

Variations in social/cultural norms

Social and cultural norms may be different for each generation and different in every culture. Few behaviours are considered a universal sign of poor mental health.

Homosexuality was classified as a mental health condition. This contributed to the negative treatment of the LGBT community. While this view is discredited, homosexuality is still illegal in some cultures

Antisocial personality disorder

Impulsive, aggressive and irresponsible people.

An important symptom is failure to conform to lawful or ethical behaviour.

Antisocial personality disorder is considered a mental health condition as people don’t conform to moral standards. Their behaviour is considered undesirable in a range of cultures

IMH S

Highly comprehensive criterion

Her concept of ideal mental health covers most of the reasons why we seek help with mental health. Someone’s mental health can be discussed with a range of professionals who might have different views.

Medically-trained psychiatrists might focus on symptoms but a humanistic counsellor might focus on self-actualisation.

This suggests that IMH provides a checklist we can assess ourselves and others against so we can discuss issues with professionals

IMH S Positive approach

It emphasises positive achievements rather than failures. It evaluates what someone is lacking rather than what they do wrong

It focuses on what is desirable, not undesirable

Less likely to create a stigma attached to abnormality being something negative.

IMH W Culture-bound

The different elements are not equally applicable across a range of cultures.

Jahoda’s criteria for IMH are located in US and Europe contexts. Within Europe there is variation in the value placed on personal independence

This means it is difficult to apply the concept of IMH to other cultures.

IMH W High standards

Very few attain all Jahoda’s criteria and not very many achieve all of them at the same time or keep them up for long.

IMH W Unrealistic

Most of us are considered abnormal by this definition

The criteria represent ideal criteria

It is not clear how many criteria need to be lacking to be defined as abnormal

This means that the definition is not really usable when it comes to identifying abnormality.

SCN S Real-world application

Deviation from SCN is used in clinical practice.

Key characteristic of APD - Failure to conform to culturally acceptable ethical behaviour. These signs are deviation from SCN.

Schizotypal personality disorder - Pronounced difficulties with relationships due to the belief that others harbour negative thoughts about them.

This shows that deviation from SCN criterion has value in psychiatry

SCN S Distinguishes desirable and undesirable behaviour

It takes account of the effect behaviour has on others.

According to this definition abnormal behaviour is one that damages others and is therefore undesirable

So it goes beyond other definitions like the statistical infrequency model

SCN W

Chappell and Jeppsson 2023

It allows people to impose a narrow range of acceptable behaviours on others.

Chappell and Jeppsson suggest that people are reassured by typical behaviour and disturbed by deviation.

If clinicians impose their own social and cultural norms on clients based on their own love of the familiar and fear of weirdness, it is seen as problematic. The clinician disregards that person’s own judgement of their well-being and imposing other people’s standards on their client.

This means that the concept of deviation from SCN as a criterion for judging MH may limit personal freedoms.

SCN W Social norms changing over time

With social norms changing, the definition of abnormal changes too.

Something that is socially acceptable now would not have been 50 years ago. Lack of temporal validity

This definition could be used as a way of social control and abuse of human rights.