Deviation from ideal mental health

You need to:

• Define ‘ideal mental health’.
• Outline DIMH as a definition of abnormality.
• Evaluate DIMH in terms of strengths and limitations and referring to culture.

​

Deviation from ideal mental health

• What are the characteristics of a ‘mentally healthy’ person? Make a list!

Deviation from ideal mental health

• Abnormality is seen as deviating from an ideal of positive mental health,
• in a similar way to how physical illness is a deviation from signs of ideal physical health (body temperature, blood pressure, etc. at certain levels).
• Jahoda (1958) listed signs of ideal mental health.

Jahoda’s criteria �for ideal mental health:

• Accurate self perception
• True perception of the world
• Realistic self esteem and acceptance
• Autonomous - voluntary control of behaviour
• Resistance to stress
• Empathy, sustaining relationships and giving affection
• Self direction and productivity
• Self actualisation

​

• What are the strengths and limitations of this approach?

​

Deviation from ideal mental health (strength)

• A positive approach to the definition of abnormality.
• Takes into account desirability.
• Views the person as a whole (holistic, not reductionist).

Deviation from ideal mental health (limitations)

• Can anyone achieve these criteria?
• Criteria for mental health are subjective, unlike physical health.

Cultural relativism

• Many criteria are culture-bound, e.g. self-actualisation, leading ‘outsiders’ to be diagnosed as abnormal.
• Autonomy is valued in individualistic cultures but is less important in collectivist ones.

Cultural relativism

• Behaviours that are statistically infrequent in one culture may be statistically more frequent in another.
• This means the statistical infrequency model is culturally relative ie. it only relates to a particular culture

​

Culture-bound syndromes

• Amok: wild, aggressive behaviour, which only lasts a short time and is usually found in males. During an episode the person attempts to kill or injure others. This disorder is found in Southeast Asia.

​

Culture-bound syndromes

• Brain fag: found mainly in West Africa among students who are about to take university or school exams. The symptoms are an inability to concentrate, headaches, difficulty in learning and eye-strain.

​

Culture-bound syndromes

• Koro: a southern Chinese anxiety disorder in which the male believes that his penis is slowly shrinking and retracting into his abdomen and that he will die when the retraction is completed.

​

Culture-bound syndromes

• Pibloqtoq or pibloktoq: found among people who live within the Artic Circle. It involves an uncontrollable desire to take off all one’s clothes and go outside.