The concept of «psychological well-being» describes the state and characteristics of a person’s inner world, which determine the experience of well-being, as well as behavior that produces and manifests situational well-being.
What personal features are associated with such an internal picture of the world of the individual and the style, way of life? The answer to this question is already more complicated, since different researchers, describing even similar personality traits, often use different concepts, different vocabulary.
K. Riff singled out as the basic components of a person’s psychological well-being: positive relationships with others, self-acceptance (a positive assessment of oneself and one’s life), autonomy (the ability to follow one’s own beliefs), competence (control over the environment, the ability to effectively manage one’s life), the presence of goals that give life direction and meaning, personal growth as a sense of ongoing development and self-realization.
It seems that approximately the same list can be formulated in other terms, assuming that psychological well-being is associated with such personal characteristics as self-confidence, adequate self-esteem, a positive outlook on life, goodwill, sociability, and emotional stability.
The concept of «psychological well-being» is closely related to such concepts as mental health, meaningfulness of life3, to a lesser extent with the concept of «personal adequacy», and with the concept of «mental health» — to a small extent.
As varied as researchers define psychological well-being, the most important issue is how it is measured. In the study of P.P. Fesenko was determined not by objective indicators and not by a rational assessment, but rather by the emotional coloring of feelings and sensations about his own life. “The low level of actual psychological well-being is due to the predominance of negative affect (a general feeling of one’s own unhappiness, dissatisfaction with one’s own life), the high level is due to the predominance of positive affect (a feeling of satisfaction with one’s own life, happiness).”
The concept of «psychological well-being» is given in turn by two terms: «psychological» and «well-being».
Well-being is a state of a person or an objective situation when a person has everything that favorably characterizes his life in the eyes of others, his relatives and himself.
«Well-being» — «a person receiving benefits.» The benefits that a person has received can include a variety of things and circumstances, the benefits of the widest range: the health of him and his loved ones, property well-being, good relations with significant people, and even good weather in his place of residence.
Social well-being refers to receiving a range of social benefits and is usually associated with the fact that you have friends and a loved one, a good job, the opportunity to pursue hobbies, health, education, and a general standard of living at least on a general level.
What then does the phrase “psychological well-being” mean?
«Psychological», as a commonly used concept, is given by three key words: internal, non-rational, situational. «Psychological» refers to the inner world of a person, but this is the inner, which is not quite rational, which cannot be described in a strictly logical way, or goes beyond reasonableness and expediency.
When a person is strictly logical, when he has a goal, deliberately selects the optimal means and reasonably implements the planned plan, this is understandable and rational, there is no place for psychology here, psychology is not needed here. Psychology and the psychological are about things that do not fit into logic. That internal, which is strictly logical, is rational. It can be said in another way: the psychological cannot be strictly measured and reliably identified with the help of external signs; in this case, the behavioral approach to the phenomenon must be supplemented by a phenomenological approach. As E. Diener writes about this, “the study of psychological well-being should take into account not only the directly measured level of well-being, but also take into account the internal, individual coordinate system” (according to P.P. Fesenko).
In addition, “psychological” is what determines, first of all, situational behavior, and not the course of a life path. The course of the life path defines the «personal», not the «psychological». Personal — that deep, which gives rise to everything else psychological. Psychological is more about personal tools, personal is about ego-identity, motives and personality orientation.
Psychological well-being excludes mental ill health, namely, unstable, low or downright bad mood, the ease of falling into negativity and the difficulty of getting out of negativity. Resentment, fears, irritation, fatigue, inability to endure life’s stress … — these are already characteristics of mental and psychological distress. Low emotional tone, hostility, anger, lack of interest in life, problematic psychosomatics and problematic psychological defenses are signs of weakening mental health. Neurosis and depression are already obvious mental illness, obvious psychological distress.
As P.P. Fesenko, “The existing research in personality psychology does not give an unequivocal answer to this question,” however, based on his own research, the author claims that the meaningfulness of life and the psychological well-being of a person directly and significantly correlate with each other. According to his data, «all structural components of psychological well-being directly correlate with the level of meaningfulness of life and meaningful life orientations.» Unfortunately, causal relationships in the work of P.P. Fesenko are not clear enough and can give rise to various interpretations. Does meaningful life generate psychological well-being, or does psychological well-being generate an interest in meaningful life? Or maybe both the meaningfulness of life and psychological well-being are in fact independent branches growing from the same root, and are equally generated by something third, for example, the general culture of the individual? A separate, very interesting question is about the psychological well-being of young children, for whom the question of the meaningfulness of life is not in principle.
It seems that adequacy in this concept is not something main and pivotal: mental health and well-being are incompatible with obvious inadequacy, although some inadequacy is allowed. If a young girl communicates regularly with the Archangel Michael, and a young man begins to eat leftovers, addresses the birds in the field with instructions and seriously talks with fire, the modern psychiatrist will consider that this is still his clientele. On the other hand, Joan of Arc and Francis of Assisi are not considered mentally ill people.
The concept of «psychological well-being» is to a small extent related to the concept of «mental health». As P.P. Fesenko, “Unlike the concepts of “mental health” and “quality of life”, psychological well-being is not directly related to the presence or absence of any mental or somatic ailments. From the concepts of positive mental health, ideas about psychological well-being differ in interest not only in the self-actualization aspect, but in how they are perceived by the person himself, focusing on the experience of happiness and satisfaction with oneself and one’s environment.