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Current Concepts of Positive Mental Health
eng, Pages 172. Reprinted in 2013 with the help of original edition published long back[1958]. This book is in black & white, Hardcover, sewing binding for longer life with Matt laminated multi-Colour Dust Cover, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, there may be some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. (Customisation is possible). Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. Original Current concepts of positive mental health 1958 [Hardcover], Original Marie Jahoda
- GenresPsychology
136 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1979
About the author
Marie Jahoda
34 books2 followersJahoda war eine österreichische Sozialforscherin und Sozialpsychologin.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 26, 2010
It's always refreshing to read a book that promises and delivers. It's all the better when it's written in clear, accessible language, meaningful organization, and consistent terms.
Marie Jahoda wrote the original text in 1958 to review, of course, current concepts of positive mental health. In a nutshell, she argues that there currently is not unified, consist definition of what "mental health" really means, and that all the major literature on in relies on either vague terms or various convenient (perhaps arbitrary) definitions. Then is it a moot point, meaningless to argue over semantics? She argues in the Introduction that the concept of positive mental health needs to be taken seriously and examined because "Whether we like it or not, the term mental health, or mental hygiene, is firmly established in the thought and actions of several groups": voluntary and government agencies; specialists helping (counseling) professions; and finally scientists themselves, namely psychiatrists, psychologist, sociologists, and anthropologists (pp. 5-6). She quickly argues her points and moves onto the bulk of the book - what is mental health?
In Section II she presents the three major conceptions (popular and scientific) of mental health, and why each one is insufficient. First, the most popular, is Absence of Mental Illness. Jahoda argues that besides simply defining defining health in terms of its literal opposite, this creates problems because it "often depends largely on accepted social conventions" (p. 13), meaning relative and lacking the kind of grounding she's looking for. Second is Normality, whatever is statistically most common or frequent. This can't work because a given definition of normality is inherently based on some prior or assumed understanding of positive mental health, or otherwise factors to measure are entirely arbitrary. Furthermore, "Psychological health may, but need not be, the status of the majority of the people," (p. 16). More so, this definition cannot define or account for behavior without a defined context - "in deciding a reference population, one is at least tacitly considering the determinant, contexts consequences and/or meanings of behavior relevant to it's evalaution from the viewpoint of mental health," (p. 17). Translate that to plain English: it order to make sense of whatever you're studying to see what's "normal," you have to start with some idea of what's normal and use that as the reference point. Point taken. Finally, Jahoda explores mental health as various states of well-being, in the sense of feeling good mentally and emotionally. But how would we define and determine what that actually means, to feel good? And from there, she questions, "what if social acceptability and personal satisfaction are incompatible?" Schadenfreude? It would be a hard sell to argue cruelty, narcissism and selfishness are signs of mental health. In fact, their generally taken to be the obvious signs of ill-being, if not true mental illness. And if mental health is tied to well-being, she asks, we would need to somehow distinguish between an unhappy disposition and unhappiness from circumstance.
I went into such detail above to illustrate the clarity of her thinking and the quality of her work. Writer on this topic, mental health or even mental illness, usually settle for vague descriptions and loose arguments to pitch their theories or perspectives. Usually I end up being disappointed that the writer has failed to deliver anything new, challenging, or interesting and had settle for rehashing the same story with new binding. Jahoda, however, delivers magnificently.
To sum up the remainder of the book, she analyzes in detail some of the major proposals for positive mental health in the early 20th century. To do this, she uses 6 categories:
1. Attitudes of an individual toward his own self
2. Growth, development or self-actualization
3. Integration (of 1 and 2)
4. Autonomy
5. Perception of reality
6. Environmental mastery
She discusses each in detail with examples to illustrate. Her effort is not to provide an exhaustive overview of the field, but to show how most descriptions of mental health fall into at least one of these categories with however much overlap.
Jahoda proposes her first original contribution in the book on page 70: The Multiple Criterion. She argues that mental health is likely not based on one single factor. I thought this was off-base, as it seemed to be rephrasing the very issue in question - what constitutes mental health? I thought the whole purpose of the book was to shed new light onto this old issue, not to reframe it with statistical language. She then follows through well with some discussion of understanding mental health in terms of physical health (I think fair, if take metaphorically), issues regarding values (perspective and culture), and a final word about putting these things in scope - that studying mental health will not bring solutions to all the world's woes, nor should it claim to. Jahoda argues for systematic, rigorous research to replace speculation and vacuous truisms. The Afterword is written by the physician Walter E. Barton, but it's worth skipping; it seems it was only included to provide some "balance" from the medical profession, whatever that means.
So is it for you and why? Jahoda's style can be a little dry, a little to the point (a little German? well, Austrian technically...). I read through it really quickly as it's a short book (110 pages), it's in my field, and the language is fairly accessible. It is certainly not a self-help book and won't lend any understanding on how to deal with specific issues or to improve your own mental health. It's a technical review of the state of the field in 1958, written most likely with scientists, government officials, and other professionals in mind, not anyone with a passing interest. I think that for the topic her writing is as clear, coherent and organized as anything you'll ever find. She maintains a clear sense of what she's saying and stays on topic throughout the book. Honestly, I'm not surprised that more hasn't been done to study "positive mental health" in the 50 odd years since she wrote this, considering how funding for research goes. But I am surprised that this book is so good and totally escape my radar until a few months ago. I'm also surprised that nothing this good has been written on topic in those 50 years, or hasn't been given it's do either. I'll say that for mental health clinicians and researchers, this should be required reading until something comparable comes along.
Marie Jahoda wrote the original text in 1958 to review, of course, current concepts of positive mental health. In a nutshell, she argues that there currently is not unified, consist definition of what "mental health" really means, and that all the major literature on in relies on either vague terms or various convenient (perhaps arbitrary) definitions. Then is it a moot point, meaningless to argue over semantics? She argues in the Introduction that the concept of positive mental health needs to be taken seriously and examined because "Whether we like it or not, the term mental health, or mental hygiene, is firmly established in the thought and actions of several groups": voluntary and government agencies; specialists helping (counseling) professions; and finally scientists themselves, namely psychiatrists, psychologist, sociologists, and anthropologists (pp. 5-6). She quickly argues her points and moves onto the bulk of the book - what is mental health?
In Section II she presents the three major conceptions (popular and scientific) of mental health, and why each one is insufficient. First, the most popular, is Absence of Mental Illness. Jahoda argues that besides simply defining defining health in terms of its literal opposite, this creates problems because it "often depends largely on accepted social conventions" (p. 13), meaning relative and lacking the kind of grounding she's looking for. Second is Normality, whatever is statistically most common or frequent. This can't work because a given definition of normality is inherently based on some prior or assumed understanding of positive mental health, or otherwise factors to measure are entirely arbitrary. Furthermore, "Psychological health may, but need not be, the status of the majority of the people," (p. 16). More so, this definition cannot define or account for behavior without a defined context - "in deciding a reference population, one is at least tacitly considering the determinant, contexts consequences and/or meanings of behavior relevant to it's evalaution from the viewpoint of mental health," (p. 17). Translate that to plain English: it order to make sense of whatever you're studying to see what's "normal," you have to start with some idea of what's normal and use that as the reference point. Point taken. Finally, Jahoda explores mental health as various states of well-being, in the sense of feeling good mentally and emotionally. But how would we define and determine what that actually means, to feel good? And from there, she questions, "what if social acceptability and personal satisfaction are incompatible?" Schadenfreude? It would be a hard sell to argue cruelty, narcissism and selfishness are signs of mental health. In fact, their generally taken to be the obvious signs of ill-being, if not true mental illness. And if mental health is tied to well-being, she asks, we would need to somehow distinguish between an unhappy disposition and unhappiness from circumstance.
I went into such detail above to illustrate the clarity of her thinking and the quality of her work. Writer on this topic, mental health or even mental illness, usually settle for vague descriptions and loose arguments to pitch their theories or perspectives. Usually I end up being disappointed that the writer has failed to deliver anything new, challenging, or interesting and had settle for rehashing the same story with new binding. Jahoda, however, delivers magnificently.
To sum up the remainder of the book, she analyzes in detail some of the major proposals for positive mental health in the early 20th century. To do this, she uses 6 categories:
1. Attitudes of an individual toward his own self
2. Growth, development or self-actualization
3. Integration (of 1 and 2)
4. Autonomy
5. Perception of reality
6. Environmental mastery
She discusses each in detail with examples to illustrate. Her effort is not to provide an exhaustive overview of the field, but to show how most descriptions of mental health fall into at least one of these categories with however much overlap.
Jahoda proposes her first original contribution in the book on page 70: The Multiple Criterion. She argues that mental health is likely not based on one single factor. I thought this was off-base, as it seemed to be rephrasing the very issue in question - what constitutes mental health? I thought the whole purpose of the book was to shed new light onto this old issue, not to reframe it with statistical language. She then follows through well with some discussion of understanding mental health in terms of physical health (I think fair, if take metaphorically), issues regarding values (perspective and culture), and a final word about putting these things in scope - that studying mental health will not bring solutions to all the world's woes, nor should it claim to. Jahoda argues for systematic, rigorous research to replace speculation and vacuous truisms. The Afterword is written by the physician Walter E. Barton, but it's worth skipping; it seems it was only included to provide some "balance" from the medical profession, whatever that means.
So is it for you and why? Jahoda's style can be a little dry, a little to the point (a little German? well, Austrian technically...). I read through it really quickly as it's a short book (110 pages), it's in my field, and the language is fairly accessible. It is certainly not a self-help book and won't lend any understanding on how to deal with specific issues or to improve your own mental health. It's a technical review of the state of the field in 1958, written most likely with scientists, government officials, and other professionals in mind, not anyone with a passing interest. I think that for the topic her writing is as clear, coherent and organized as anything you'll ever find. She maintains a clear sense of what she's saying and stays on topic throughout the book. Honestly, I'm not surprised that more hasn't been done to study "positive mental health" in the 50 odd years since she wrote this, considering how funding for research goes. But I am surprised that this book is so good and totally escape my radar until a few months ago. I'm also surprised that nothing this good has been written on topic in those 50 years, or hasn't been given it's do either. I'll say that for mental health clinicians and researchers, this should be required reading until something comparable comes along.
September 24, 2020
One of the most important books I've read, alongside her "Marienthal"-study. Psychology and psychiatry have studied mental illness, but only little effort has been made to define mental health. Is is one such effort.
March 6, 2016
i want to read please
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews