Tuesday, July 2, 1963
Summer Session Kansan
Page 3
Scientists Search to Define Mental Health
By Delos Smith
NEW YORK—(UPI)Social scientists greatly need a truly descriptive term for mental health now that most of them describe mental illness as mental health.
This confuses both scientists and the public, said Prof. Andie L. Knutson of The University of California, Berkeley, in calling for a new scientific effort to find out precisely what mental health is. Social sciences have yet to define it in terms acceptable to all scientists.
"THE TERM 'MENTAL HEALTH' is rapidly replacing 'mental illness' in lay and professional vocabularies" he said. "We include among the mental health professions those concerned with mental disorders, and refer to resources available to those with mental or emotional problems as mental health clinics or mental health facilities.
"One sees reference to 'the problems of mental health' and even to 'the prevention of mental health' by outstanding experts who get their words jumbled. Many of us have difficulty avoiding such slips."
There is now no truly satisfactory term with which to describe the absence of illness or the goal of good health, said Dr. Knutson.
"THE PHRASE, 'POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH' which was initially used to refer to the development of creativity and self-actualization, is now being employed as a synonym for mental health," he continued.
"The public implications of this switch in technical jargon are most interesting. It would be folly, for example, to assume that mental health clinics serve, or can effectively serve as primary public resources for persons who seek assistance in developing their creative potentialities."
THE SOCIAL SCIENCES need both a descriptive term of the goal of such persons and the knowledge with which to help them to reach the goal, he said in appealing through a technical organ of the American Psychological Association for large-scale research.
"Many people want and seek counseling, evaluation or guidance for themselves or their children not because they are concerned with illness or potential illness, but because they wish to enjoy a more abundant life," he said.
Psychologists and other social scientists are bound in their creative research by the old terms, such as "positive mental health." and a new term would liberate them for an imaginative search for ways of advancing human creativity and self-realization.
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THE NEW TERM for mental health should "at once retain the good will and enthusiastic participation of members of the mental health profession and their medical, health and welfare colleagues, and yet effectively elicit the involvement of members of other social sciences, the humanities, education, religion and philosophy."
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