Mental Health Models
This section looks at the difference between mental health and mental illness and introduces the Mental Health Continuum, which illustrates how we can all move from healthier to more disrupted levels of functioning and back.
This section also looks at marginalized groups that are at higher risk of experiencing mental health challenges and face greater barriers to getting help.
These slides are available for use with this section of the presentation. For information about downloading presentation slides, see Introduction.
Mental Health and Mental Illness
Mental health is a term that is often used interchangeably with mental health issues or mental illness, but they are not the same.
As we discussed, mental health is the capacity of every individual to feel, think, and act in ways that enhance their ability to enjoy life and deal with challenges.
Mental health issues refer to diminished capacities – whether cognitive, emotional, attentional, interpersonal, motivational, or behavioural – that interfere with a person’s enjoyment of life or adversely affect interactions with society and environment. Feelings of low self-esteem, frequent frustration or irritability, burnout, feelings of stress, or excessive worrying, are all examples of common mental health problems.[1] Most people will experience mental health issues like these at some point in their life.
Mental illnesses are conditions that affect a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, or behaviour, such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. Such conditions may be occasional or long-lasting (chronic) and affect someone’s ability to relate to others and function each day.
Mental health is more than the absence of mental illness. It includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It is influenced by many factors, and it affects how we handle the normal stresses of life and relate to others.
A person diagnosed with a mental illness can have good mental health and be flourishing and thriving. Likewise, a person can be languishing or experiencing poor mental health and not be diagnosed with a mental illness. The Corey Keyes Dual Continuum Model illustrates this.
Mental Health Continuum
The Mental Health Continuum is another way to think about mental health. All of us have a mental health life; we all experience changes in our mood, changes in our level of anxiety – from life stressors or from crises – and those changes can be considered on a spectrum or a continuum. On this continuum, we can move from healthier to more disrupted levels of functioning and back. At each level, there are resources to promote health and reduce disruption.
Healthy
On one end of the continuum, we have times when our health is good, we can cope with whatever comes our way, and we can do the things we need or want to do. We would describe that as healthy functioning. Thinking back to the Wellness Wheel, this is when everything is mostly