Mental Health and Psychopathology

Book excerpt: This volume is a compilation of articles that shed light on psychopathology, how the one struggling with it experiences its implications, and how it affects everyday life. For one to be categorized as exhibiting positive mental health, an individual should not experience psychopathology, and additionally exhibit high levels of emotional well-being as well as high levels of psychological and social functioning. The dual-factor model of mental health suggests that enhancing positive mental health and alleviating psychopathology do not automatically go together and are not opposite of one another. There is accumulating evidence that psychopathology and positive mental health function along two different continua that are only moderately interrelated. However, to know what wellbeing is, understand good mental health, and enhance adaptive functioning, we need to explore and understand psychopathology, and how it affects us. The volume is divided into three conceptual sections: The Experience of Psychopathology, which is devoted to describing what it is and how it is experienced; The Effect of Psychopathology on Everyday Life, describes various effects that psychopathology has on the daily life of the sufferer; Coherence, Resilience and Recovery, which focuses on dealing with it, coping with the symptoms, and developing resilience. The chapters in this book were originally published in The Journal of Psychology.