Mental health can be defined as the emotional and spiritual resilience, which enables enjoyment of life and the ability to survive pain, disappointment and sadness. Also, it could be defined as a positive sense of wellbeing and an underlying belief in an individual’s dignity and worth (Cherry, 2014; Mash & Wolfe, 2013). Mental health is determined by the interplay of various factors at the intrapersonal, interpersonal and the environmental levels. Thus, the measures taken to promote mental health are largely influenced by the type of a mental case. These measures are broadly divided into protective measures and risk factors. The protective measures include an understanding of the gender, social-economic factors, cultural practices, working place and how these experiences predispose people to higher risks of mental health (Mash & Wolfe, 2013).
Healthy social support and strong social network and social inclusion are said to be key to mental health since they create higher levels of trust and thereby minimizing cases of psychological distress. Risk factors, on the other hand, are the levels of psychological distress faced by the target population. These levels are categorized either as primary level interventions. If there are risks of a universal nature that can be addressed through sampling of the most predisposed persons, then selective interventions are applied to assist those at a higher risk of a given type of mental ill health. Some of these factors are community violence and disasters, divorce/family break-up, chronic poverty, homelessness, and parental inadequacies. (Mash & Wolfe, 2013)
The protective triad refers to a number of health promoting events, which involve the strengths of the child, the family, school environment and the community, which not only boosts the child’s self-esteem, but also provides him or her with the ability to avoid risky situations and the ability to recover from misfortunes (Mash & Wolfe, 2013).
References
Cherry, K. (2014). What Is Abnormal Psychology? Web.
Majau, U. (2014). Perspectives to sex discrimination: male and female chauvinism. Web.
Mash, E. J., & Wolfe, D. A. (2013). Abnormal child psychology, (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.