University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England.
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
J Med Philos. 2021 Dec 2;46(6):684-703. doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhab032.
What is it to be mentally healthy? In the ongoing movement to promote mental health, to reduce stigma, and to establish parity between mental and physical health, there is a clear enthusiasm about this concept and a recognition of its value in human life. However, it is often unclear what mental health means in all these efforts and whether there is a single concept underlying them. Sometimes, the initiatives for the sake of mental health are aimed just at reducing mental illness, thus implicitly identifying mental health with the absence of diagnosable psychiatric disease. More ambitiously, there are high-profile proposals to adopt a positive definition, identifying mental health with psychic or even overall well-being. We argue against both: a definition of mental health as mere absence of mental illness is too thin, too undemanding, and too closely linked to psychiatric value judgments, while the definition in terms of well-being is too demanding and potentially oppressive. As a compromise, we sketch out a middle position. On this view, mental health is a primary good, that is, the psychological preconditions of pursuing any conception of the good life, including well-being, without being identical to well-being.
什么是心理健康？在当前促进心理健康、减少污名化以及在心理健康和身体健康之间建立平等地位的运动中，人们对这个概念表现出明显的热情，并认识到它在人类生活中的价值。然而，在所有这些努力中，心理健康究竟意味着什么，以及它们是否有一个共同的概念基础，往往并不清楚。有时，为了心理健康而采取的措施只是为了减少精神疾病，从而含蓄地将心理健康等同于没有可诊断的精神疾病。更有雄心勃勃的是，有人提议采用积极的定义，将心理健康等同于精神健康，甚至是整体健康。我们反对这两种观点：将心理健康定义为仅仅没有精神疾病，这种定义过于单薄、要求过低，而且与精神科的价值判断过于紧密相关；而将心理健康定义为健康则要求过高，并且可能具有压迫性。作为一种妥协，我们勾勒出一个中间立场。在这种观点中，心理健康是一种基本善，即追求任何美好生活观念（包括健康）的心理前提，而与健康本身并不相同。
