Mental health as a dynamic characteristic of individuality

It is also important for us to use the very concept of mental (and not spiritual, personal, psychological, etc.) health. We agree with the authors who believe that the exclusion of the concept of «soul» from the language of psychological science hinders understanding the integrity of a person’s mental life, and who refer to it in their works (B. S. Bratus, F. E. Vasilyuk, V. P. Zinchenko, T. A. Florenskaya and others). It is the state of the soul as the inner world of a person that is an indicator and condition of his ability to prevent and overcome external and internal conflicts, develop individuality and manifest it in various cultural forms.

Our proposed approach to understanding mental health is somewhat different from those presented in the psychological literature. As a rule, authors writing on this topic list those personality characteristics that help her cope with life’s difficulties and experience subjective well-being.

One of the works devoted to this problem was the book by M. Yagoda «Modern concepts of positive mental health» [21]. Yagoda classified the criteria that were used in Western scientific literature to describe a mentally healthy person, according to nine main criteria: 1) the absence of mental disorders; 2) normality; 3) various states of psychological well-being (for example, «happiness»); 4) individual autonomy; 5) skill in influencing the environment; 6) «correct» perception of reality; 7) certain attitudes towards self; 8) growth, development and self-actualization; 9) the integrity of the individual. At the same time, she emphasized that the semantic content of the concept of “positive mental health” depends on the goal that the one who uses it faces.

Yagoda herself named five signs of mentally healthy people: the ability to manage your time; the presence of significant social relations for them; the ability to work effectively with others; a high self-evaluation; orderly activity. Studying people who have lost their jobs, Yagoda found that they experience a state of psychological distress precisely because they lose many of these qualities, and not just because they lose their material well-being.

We find similar lists of signs of mental health in the works of various authors. In the concept of G. Allport there is an analysis of the difference between a healthy personality and a neurotic one. A healthy personality, according to Allport, has motives that are caused not by the past, but by the present, conscious and unique. Allport called such a person mature and singled out six features that characterize her: “expansion of the sense of self”, which implies authentic participation in areas of activity that are significant for her; warmth in relation to others, the ability to compassion, deep love and friendship; emotional security, the ability to accept and cope with their experiences, frustration tolerance; realistic perception of objects, people and situations, the ability to immerse yourself in work and the ability to solve problems; good self-knowledge and associated sense of humor; the presence of a «single philosophy of life», a clear idea of ​​the purpose of one’s life as a unique human being and the corresponding responsibilities [14, p. 335-351].

For A. Maslow, a mentally healthy person is one who has realized the need for self-actualization inherent in nature. Here are the qualities that he ascribes to such people: effective perception of reality; openness to experience; the integrity of the individual; spontaneity; autonomy, independence; creativity; democratic character structure, etc. Maslow believes that the most important characteristic of self-actualizing people is that they are all involved in some kind of business that is very valuable for them, constituting their vocation. Another sign of a healthy personality Maslow puts in the title of the article “Health as a way out of the environment”, where he states: “We must take a step towards … a clear understanding of transcendence in relation to the environment, independence from it, the ability to resist it, fight it, neglect or turn away from it, abandon it or adapt to it [22, p. 2]. Maslow explains internal alienation from the culture of a self-actualized personality by the fact that the surrounding culture, as a rule, is less healthy than a healthy personality [11, p. 248].

A. Ellis, the author of the model of rational-emotional behavioral psychotherapy, puts forward the following criteria for psychological health: respect for one’s own interests; social interest; self management; high tolerance for frustration; flexibility; acceptance of uncertainty; devotion to creative pursuits; scientific thinking; self acceptance; riskiness; delayed hedonism; dystopianism; responsibility for their emotional disorders [17, p. 38-40].

The presented sets of characteristics of a mentally healthy person (like most others not mentioned here, including those present in the works of domestic psychologists) reflect the tasks that their authors solve: identifying the causes of mental distress, theoretical foundations and practical recommendations for psychological assistance to the population of developed Western countries . The signs included in such lists have a pronounced socio-cultural specificity. They allow maintaining mental health for a person who belongs to modern Western culture, based on Protestant values ​​(activity, rationality, individualism, responsibility, diligence, success), and who has absorbed the values ​​of the European humanistic tradition (the self-worth of the individual, his right to happiness, freedom, development, creativity). We can agree that spontaneity, uniqueness, expressiveness, creativity, autonomy, the ability to emotional intimacy and other excellent properties really characterize a mentally healthy person in the conditions of modern culture. But is it possible to say, for example, that where humility, strict observance of moral standards and etiquette, adherence to traditional patterns and unconditional obedience to authority were considered the main virtues, the list of traits of a mentally healthy person will be the same? Obviously not.

It should be noted that cultural anthropologists often asked themselves what are the signs and conditions for the formation of a mentally healthy person in traditional cultures. M. Mead was interested in this and presented her answer in the book Growing Up in Samoa. She showed that the absence of severe mental suffering among the inhabitants of this island, who preserved until the 1920s. signs of a traditional way of life, due, in particular, to the low importance for them of the individual characteristics of both other people and their own. Samoan culture did not practice comparing people to each other, it was not customary to analyze the motives of behavior, and strong emotional attachments and manifestations were not encouraged. Mead saw the main reason for the large number of neuroses in European culture (including American) in the fact that it is highly individualized, feelings for other people are personified and emotionally saturated [12, p. 142-171].

I must say that some of the psychologists recognized the potential for different models of maintaining mental health. So, E. Fromm connects the preservation of a person’s mental health with the ability to get satisfaction of a number of needs: in social relations with people; in creativity; in rootedness; in identity; in intellectual orientation and emotionally colored system of values. He notes that different cultures provide different ways to meet these needs. Thus, a member of a primitive clan could express his identity only through belonging to a clan; in the Middle Ages, the individual was identified with his social role in the feudal hierarchy [20, p. 151-164].

K. Horney showed significant interest in the problem of cultural determinism of the signs of mental health. It takes into account the well-known and well-founded fact by cultural anthropologists that the assessment of a person as mentally healthy or unhealthy depends on the standards adopted in one culture or another: behavior, thoughts and feelings that are considered absolutely normal in one culture are regarded as a sign of pathology in another. However, we find especially valuable Horney’s attempt to find signs of mental health or ill health that are universal across cultures. She suggests three signs of mental health loss: rigidity of response (understood as a lack of flexibility in responding to specific circumstances); the gap between human potentialities and their use; the presence of internal anxiety and psychological defense mechanisms. Moreover, culture itself can prescribe specific forms of behavior and attitudes that make a person more or less rigid, unproductive, anxious. At the same time, it supports a person, affirming these forms of behavior and attitudes as generally accepted and providing him with methods to get rid of fears [16, p. 21].

In the works of K.-G. Jung, we find a description of two ways of gaining mental health. The first is the path of individuation, which assumes that a person independently performs a transcendental function, dares to plunge into the depths of his own soul and integrate actualized experiences from the sphere of the collective unconscious with his own attitudes of consciousness. The second is the path of submission to conventions: various kinds of social institutions — moral, social, political, religious. Jung emphasized that obedience to conventions was natural for a society in which group life prevails, and the self-consciousness of each person as an individual is not developed. Since the path of individuation is complex and contradictory, many people still choose the path of obedience to conventions. However, in modern conditions, following social stereotypes carries a potential danger both for the inner world of a person and for his ability to adapt [18; nineteen].

So, we have seen that in those works where the authors take into account the diversity of cultural contexts, the criteria for mental health are more generalized than where this context is taken out of brackets.

What is the general logic that would make it possible to take into account the influence of culture on a person’s mental health? Answering this question, we, following K. Horney, made an attempt to first find the most general criteria for mental health. Having identified these criteria, it is possible to investigate how (due to what psychological properties and due to what cultural models of behavior) a person can maintain his mental health in conditions of different cultures, including modern culture. Some results of our work in this direction were presented earlier [3; 4; 5; 6; 7 and others]. Here we will briefly formulate them.

The concept of mental health that we propose is based on the understanding of a person as a complex self-developing system, which implies his desire for certain goals and adaptation to environmental conditions (including interaction with the outside world and the implementation of internal self-regulation).

We accept four general criteria, or indicators of mental health: 1) the presence of meaningful life goals; 2) the adequacy of activities to socio-cultural requirements and the natural environment; 3) experience of subjective well-being; 4) favorable prognosis.

The first criterion — the existence of meaning-forming life goals — suggests that in order to maintain a person’s mental health, it is important that the goals that guide his activity are subjectively significant for him, have meaning. In the case when it comes to physical survival, actions that have a biological meaning acquire a subjective significance. But no less important for a person is the subjective experience of the personal meaning of his activity. The loss of the meaning of life, as shown in the works of V. Frankl, leads to a state of existential frustration and logoneurosis.

The second criterion is the adequacy of the activity to socio-cultural requirements and the natural environment. It is based on the need for a person to adapt to the natural and social conditions of life. The reactions of a mentally healthy person to life circumstances are adequate, that is, they retain an adaptive (ordered and productive) character and are biologically and socially expedient [13, p. 297].

The third criterion is the experience of subjective well-being. This state of inner harmony, described by ancient philosophers, Democritus called «good state of mind.» In modern psychology, it is most often referred to as happiness (well-being). The opposite state is considered as internal disharmony resulting from the inconsistency of the desires, capabilities and achievements of the individual.

On the fourth criterion — a favorable prognosis — we will dwell in more detail, since this indicator of mental health has not received adequate coverage in the literature. It characterizes a person’s ability to maintain the adequacy of activity and the experience of subjective well-being in a broad time perspective. This criterion makes it possible to distinguish from truly productive decisions those that provide a satisfactory state of a person at the present time, but are fraught with negative consequences in the future. An analogue is the «spurring» of the body with the help of a variety of stimulants. Situational increases in activity can lead to increased levels of functioning and well-being. However, in the future, the depletion of the body’s capabilities is inevitable and, as a result, a decrease in resistance to harmful factors and deterioration in health. The criterion of a favorable prognosis makes it possible to understand the negative assessment of the role of defense mechanisms in comparison with the methods of coping behavior. Defense mechanisms are dangerous because they create well-being through self-deception. It can be relatively useful if it protects the psyche from too painful experiences, but it can also be harmful if it closes the prospect of further full development for a person.

Mental health in our interpretation is a dimensional characteristic. That is, we can talk about one or another level of mental health on a continuum from absolute health to its complete loss. The overall level of mental health is determined by the level of each of the above indicators. They may be more or less consistent. An example of mismatch is cases when a person shows adequacy in behavior, but at the same time experiences the deepest internal conflict.

The listed criteria of mental health are, in our opinion, universal. People living in a variety of cultures, in order to maintain their mental health, must have meaningful life goals, act adequately to the requirements of the natural and socio-cultural environment, maintain a state of internal balance, and taking into account the long-term perspective. But at the same time, the specificity of different cultures consists, in particular, in the creation of specific conditions so that people living in it can meet these criteria. We can conditionally distinguish two types of cultures: those in which the thoughts, feelings and actions of people are regulated by traditions, and those in which they are largely the result of a person’s own intellectual, emotional and physical activity.

In cultures of the first type (conditionally “traditional”), a person from birth received a program for his whole life. It included goals corresponding to his social status, gender, age; regulations governing his relations with people; ways of adaptation to natural conditions; ideas about what mental well-being should be and how it can be achieved. Cultural prescriptions were coordinated among themselves, sanctioned by religion and social institutions, psychologically justified. Obedience to them ensured the ability of a person to maintain his mental health.

A fundamentally different situation develops in a society where the influence of norms regulating the inner world and human behavior is significantly weakened. E. Durkheim described such a state of society as anomie and showed its danger to the well-being and behavior of people. In the works of sociologists of the second half of the XNUMXth and the first decade of the XNUMXth! in. (O. Toffler, Z. Beck, E. Bauman, P. Sztompka, etc.) it is shown that the rapid changes taking place in the life of a modern Western person, the increase in uncertainty and risks create increased difficulties for self-identification and adaptation of the individual, which is expressed in the experience «shock from the future», «cultural trauma» and similar negative states.

It is obvious that the preservation of mental health in the conditions of modern society implies a different strategy than in a traditional society: not obedience to «conventions» (K.-G. Jung), but active, independent creative solution of a number of problems. We designated these tasks as psychohygienic.

Among a wide range of psychohygienic tasks, we distinguish three types: the implementation of goal-setting and actions aimed at achieving significant goals; adaptation to the cultural, social and natural environment; self-regulation.

In everyday life, these problems are solved, as a rule, non-reflexively. Particular attention to them is required in difficult situations such as «critical life events» that require a restructuring of a person’s relationship with the outside world. In these cases, internal work is needed to correct life goals; optimization of interaction with the cultural, social and natural environment; increasing the level of self-regulation.

It is the ability of a person to solve these problems and thus productively overcome critical life events that is, on the one hand, an indicator, and, on the other hand, a condition for maintaining and strengthening mental health.

The solution of each of these problems involves the formulation and solution of more specific problems. So, the correction of goal-setting is associated with the identification of the true drives, inclinations and abilities of the individual; with awareness of the subjective hierarchy of goals; with the establishment of life priorities; with a more or less distant outlook. In modern society, many circumstances complicate these processes. Thus, the expectations of others and considerations of prestige often prevent a person from realizing their true desires and capabilities. Changes in the socio-cultural situation require him to be flexible, open to new things in determining his own life goals. Finally, the real circumstances of life do not always provide the individual with the opportunity to realize his inner aspirations. The latter is especially characteristic of poor societies, where a person is forced to fight for physical survival.

Optimization of interaction with the environment (natural, social, spiritual) can occur both as an active transformation of the external world, and as a conscious movement to a different environment (change of climate, social, ethno-cultural environment, etc.). Effective activity to transform external reality requires developed mental processes, primarily intellectual ones, as well as appropriate knowledge, skills and abilities. They are created in the process of accumulating experience of interaction with the natural and socio-cultural environment, and this happens both in the history of mankind and in the individual life of each person.

In order to increase the level of self-regulation, in addition to mental abilities, the development of the emotional sphere, intuition, knowledge and understanding of the patterns of mental processes, skills and abilities to work with them are required.

Under what conditions can the solution of the listed psychohygienic problems be successful? We formulated them in the form of principles for the preservation of mental health. These are the principles of objectivity; will to health; building on cultural heritage.

The first is the principle of objectivity. Its essence is that the decisions made will be successful if they correspond to the real state of things, including the actual properties of the person himself, the people with whom he comes into contact, social circumstances and, finally, the deep tendencies of the existence of human society and each person.

The second principle, the observance of which is a prerequisite for the successful solution of psychohygienic problems, is the will to health. This principle means recognizing health as a value for which efforts should be made.

The third most important condition for strengthening mental health is the principle of relying on cultural traditions. In the process of cultural and historical development, humanity has accumulated vast experience in solving the problems of goal-setting, adaptation and self-regulation. The question of in what forms it is stored and what psychological mechanisms make it possible to use this wealth was considered in our works [4; 6; 7 and others].

Who is the bearer of mental health? As mentioned above, researchers of this psychological phenomenon prefer to write about a healthy personality. Meanwhile, in our opinion, it is more productive to consider a person as an individual as a carrier of mental health.

The concept of personality has many interpretations, but first of all it is associated with social determination and manifestations of a person. The concept of individuality also has different interpretations. Individuality is considered as the uniqueness of natural inclinations, a peculiar combination of psychological properties and social relations, activity in determining one’s life position, etc. Of particular value for the study of mental health is, in our opinion, the interpretation of individuality in the concept of B. G. Ananiev. Individuality appears here as an integral person with his own inner world, which regulates the interaction of all substructures of a person and his relationship with the natural and social environment. Such an interpretation of individuality brings it closer to the concepts of subject and personality, as they are interpreted by psychologists of the Moscow school — A.V. Brushlinsky, K.A. Abulkhanova, L.I. Antsyferova and others. a subject actively acting and transforming his life, but in the fullness of his biological nature, mastered knowledge, formed skills, social roles. “… A single person as an individual can only be understood as the unity and interconnection of his properties as a personality and a subject of activity, in the structure of which the natural properties of a person as an individual function. In other words, individuality can be understood only under the condition of a complete set of human characteristics” [1, p. 334]. This understanding of individuality seems to be the most productive not only for purely academic research, but also for practical developments, the purpose of which is to help real people discover their own potentials, establish favorable relations with the world, and achieve inner harmony.

It is obvious that the properties unique for each person as an individual, personality and subject of activity create specific conditions and prerequisites for solving the psychohygienic tasks listed above.

So, for example, the features of the biochemistry of the brain, which characterize a person as an individual, affect his emotional experiences. The task of optimizing one’s emotional background will be different for an individual whose hormones provide an elevated mood, from one who is predisposed by hormones to experiencing depressive states. In addition, biochemical agents in the body are able to enhance drives, stimulate or inhibit mental processes involved in adaptation and self-regulation.

The personality in Ananiev’s interpretation is, first of all, a participant in public life; it is determined by social roles and value orientations corresponding to these roles. These characteristics create the prerequisites for more or less successful adaptation to social structures.

Consciousness (as a reflection of objective reality) and activity (as a transformation of reality), as well as the corresponding knowledge and skills characterize, according to Ananiev, a person as a subject of activity [2, c.147]. It is obvious that these properties are significant for maintaining and strengthening mental health. They not only allow us to understand the causes of the difficulties that have arisen, but also to find ways to overcome them.

Note, however, that Ananiev wrote about individuality not only as a systemic integrity, but called it a special, fourth, substructure of a person — his inner world, including subjectively organized images and concepts, a person’s self-consciousness, an individual system of value orientations. In contrast to the substructures of the individual, personality and subject of activity “open” to the world of nature and society, individuality is a relatively closed system, “embedded” in an open system of interaction with the world. Individuality as a relatively closed system develops «a certain relationship between human tendencies and potentials, self-consciousness and «I» — the core of the human personality» [1, p. 328].

Each of the substructures and the person as a system integrity is characterized by internal inconsistency. “… The formation of individuality and the unified direction of development of the individual, personality and subject in the general structure of a person determined by it stabilize this structure and are one of the most important factors of high vitality and longevity” [2, p. 189]. Thus, it is the individuality (as a specific substructure, the inner world of a person) that carries out activities aimed at maintaining and strengthening the mental health of a person.

Note, however, that this is not always the case. If mental health is not the highest value for a person, he can make decisions that are unproductive from the point of view of mental hygiene. An apology for suffering as a condition for the poet’s work is present in the author’s preface to M. Houellebecq’s book of poems, which is entitled “Suffering First”: “Life is a series of strength tests. Survive the first, cut off on the last. Lose your life, but not completely. And suffer, always suffer. Learn to feel pain in every cell of your body. Each fragment of the world must hurt you personally. But you have to stay alive — at least for a while» [15, p. thirteen].

Finally, let’s return to the name of the phenomenon we are interested in: «mental health». It seems to be the most adequate here, since it is the concept of the soul that turns out to be corresponding to the subjective experience by a person of his inner world as the core of individuality. The term «soul», according to A. F. Losev, is used in philosophy to denote the inner world of a person, his self-consciousness [10, p. 167]. We find a similar use of this concept in psychology. Thus, W. James writes about the soul as a vital substance, which manifests itself in the feeling of a person’s inner activity. This feeling of activity, according to James, is «the very center, the very core of our «I» [8, p. 86].

In recent decades, both the very concept of “soul” and its essential characteristics, location, and functions have become the subject of academic research. The above concept of mental health is consistent with the approach to understanding the soul, formulated by V.P. Zinchenko. He writes about the soul as a kind of energy essence, planning for the creation of new functional organs (according to A. A. Ukhtomsky), authorizing, coordinating and integrating their work, revealing itself more and more fully at the same time. It is in this work of the soul, as V.P. Zinchenko suggests, that “the integrity of a person sought by scientists and artists is hidden” [9, p. 153]. It seems natural that the concept of the soul is among the key ones in the works of specialists who comprehend the process of psychological assistance to people experiencing internal conflicts.

The proposed approach to the study of mental health allows us to consider it in a broad cultural context due to the fact that it adopts universal criteria that provide guidelines for determining the content of this characteristic of a person. The list of psychohygienic tasks makes it possible, on the one hand, to explore the conditions for maintaining and strengthening mental health in certain economic and sociocultural circumstances, and on the other hand, to analyze how a particular person sets himself and solves these tasks. Speaking about individuality as a carrier of mental health, we draw attention to the need to take into account, when studying the current state and dynamics of mental health, the properties of a person as an individual, personality and subject of activity, which are regulated by his inner world. The implementation of this approach involves the integration of data from many natural sciences and the humanities. However, such an integration is inevitable if we are to understand such a complexly organized characteristic of a person as his mental health.

Footnotes

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