[Opinions on health and integrating health processes--in theoretical and in psychiatric care context].

This study is a part of the research project "Multidimensional Health" and consists of a theoretical and on empirical part. The theoretical part analyzes the concepts of health and processes of health, taking as its theoretical frame of reference the theories of Eriksson. The empirical part is a study of the processes of health of fourteen patients in psychiatric health care and is a hermeneutical study. The aim is to describe and to understand multidimensional health, integrating processes of health and the factors guiding or directing them. The premise that health is relative is verified by the results. The dominating pattern of the processes of health suggests that they are integrating. Man's consciousness of his own potential wholeness, the experience of being accepted in relation to the concrete and the abstract other, and the experience of his own place are essential parts of integrating processes of health.