What We Talk About When We Talk About Mental Health

And what we should be talking about instead.

Brooke Landberg
Aug 9, 2017 · 4 min read
Photo by Isai Ramos on Unsplash

Google “mental health” and you’ll find a lot of talk of mental illness, but almost no discussion of mental wellness. Often, good mental health is defined as the absence of mental problems.

This page on mentalhealth.gov answers the question, “What Is Mental Health?” with a long list of “Early Warning Signs” of mental health problems, a handful of benefits of having “positive mental health”, and some well-intentioned but sort-of-silly suggestions for how to maintain it.

Nowhere does the site provide a picture of what positive mental health actually looks like or how it works.

This is only one example, but I probably don’t need to tell you that it’s an epitomizing one. Search for the Mental Health tag here on Medium and you’ll see post after post discussing mental health problems and their supposed causes or solutions. You’ll likely find no posts (except for mine) actually talking about mental health.

What gives?

Maybe we don’t concern ourselves with mental health because when something’s working, we don’t worry about fixing it. When you’re mentally healthy, you’re not likely to research your mental state on the internet. (Unless you’re as angsty as I used to be, and even happiness makes you anxious: “This is too good to be true! What could it mean? When is it going to end?!”)

We are a society of capitalist problem solvers. We like to busy ourselves with selling tools and tips to fixing things. We see a mental health problem, and we come up with a way to solve it. We see mental health, and we move on, because a healthy person doesn’t need the wares we’re peddling.

But we also know that we can learn a lot about how to fix a broken thing by studying a functioning one. If we don’t know what mental health is, how can we really address mental illness?

Maybe we just don’t know what mental health is or where it comes from. And yet, we’ve agreed upon some symptoms of it, and we’ve made list after list after list of the Habits of Happy People, and the Signs You Have Self-Esteem Now, and the Rules for a Fulfilling Life.

Correlation is not causation. Just because someone claims they’re happy and has certain habits does not mean that those habits describe or lead to mental health. Just because someone on their deathbed claims to regret not spending more time with loved ones doesn’t mean they would have been more mentally healthy if they had.

The validity of these listicles’ claims aside, are they at least trying to talk about mental health? Let’s say for a moment that they are, and that their existence negates my original observation that we never talk about mental health.

If that’s the case, then I’m lost, and tired, and tired of being lost and tired.

To me, these lists of causes, symptoms, habits, and rules are like bricks on a foundation-less house. One of my mentors used that metaphor to describe the way that the fields of psychology and psychiatry have countless theories in journals and hundreds of possible diagnoses in the DSM, but no laws or principles to describe the psychological experience.

Without bricks, we certainly don’t have a house, but without a foundation, the house will eventually crumble.

Things have to be simpler than long lists of symptoms. If I ask you what gravity is, I don’t want you to describe and categorize every instance of a falling object you’ve ever seen. I want you to tell me what the concept of gravity is. I want you to describe to me its nature — the principles behind it. I want you to talk to me about how gravity works.

That, my friends, is what we should be talking about when we talk about mental health.

Let’s spend less time describing instances of people moving further away from or closer to a state of mental health. It has been useful, a necessary stage in the development of this conversation — just like describing instances of objects in motion was useful to the development of the theory of gravity. But we’ve done that, and we’re still no happier than we were before. Youth suicide rates continue to increase.

It’s time to stop describing mental illnesses, and start talking about how mental health works. It’s time to build the foundation, even if that means re-laying the bricks.

Let’s talk about the principles of mental health. Let’s talk about how wellness works. Let’s talk about the mechanics behind well-being.

That’s a conversation that can change lives. It sure changed mine.

Who’s with me?


These insights are for educational purposes only and are not intended to replace the advice of physicians or health care practitioners. Please seek help from a crisis hotline or health care provider immediately if you feel you might be a danger to yourself or others.

The Daily Lift

Brooke Landberg

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Working toward freedom.

The Daily Lift

Grounded insights on living well — and loving well — in an unwell world.

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