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Mental Health: General Guidelines

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Encyclopedia of Primary Prevention and Health Promotion

Introduction

This entry reviews theory and research on promoting mental health in adulthood through a focus on promoting subjective well-being and happiness, rather than preventing mental disorders.

Definitions

Traditional approaches to promoting mental health have focused primarily on the prevention of mental illness or disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-TR (or simply the DSM) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) defines a “mental disorder” as “a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress…or disability…or with a significantly increased risk of suffering, death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom” (p. xxxi).

Using this definition, promoting mental health consists of preventing the distress, suffering, pain, disability, death, or loss of freedom associated with one or more of the hundreds of syndromes described in the DSM. This...

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Acknowledgment

The first author would like to thank Ernest Mundell, Patricia Rippetoe, and Gregory Pence for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this entry.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA

    James E. Maddux

  2. Department of Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA, 95053, USA

    David B. Feldman

Authors
  1. James E. Maddux
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  2. David B. Feldman
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  3. C. R. Snyder
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Correspondence to James E. Maddux .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Child & Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut, New London, CT, USA

    Thomas P. Gullotta

  2. University of Connecticut, West Hartford, USA

    Martin Bloom

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Maddux, J.E., Feldman, D.B., Snyder, C.R. (2014). Mental Health: General Guidelines. In: Gullotta, T.P., Bloom, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Primary Prevention and Health Promotion. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5999-6_275

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