Mental Health & Wellbeing: Are they the same?

Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) are classically credited with promoting a field of research to understand what allows people to be mentally healthy, flourish and experience optimal wellbeing. They claim “that there are human strengths that act as buffers against mental illness” (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p. 7) and this is where psychology can develop preventative measures rather than just looking to cure mental illness. In order to explore and understand this link between mental wellbeing and mental ill health, the ‘complete state model’ (Figure 1: (Keyes & Lopez, 2002) provides an important contribution, using two dimensions, mental health and mental illness, to suggest that ‘complete mental health’ is not just the absence of mental illness.

Figure 1. Mental health and mental illness: The complete state model (Keyes & Lopez, 2002, p. 50)

For ‘complete mental health’ to exist there must be an absence of mental illness symptoms but also high levels of emotional, psychological and social wellbeing. Keyes and Lopez (2002, p. 49) describe this as “adults will exhibit emotional vitality (e.g., high happiness and satisfaction)” or ‘flourishing’. However, it is also important to acknowledge that this model suggests that those with mental illness can still experience wellbeing which is described as ‘incomplete mental illness’ but they would not be seen as flourishing. Keyes and Lopez (2002) suggest that developing wellbeing can allow those that are at the ‘incomplete mental health’ state or ‘languishing’ to move into the ‘flourishing’ state and thus avoid developing a mental illness. To truly support a person with a mental illness both dimensions of the ‘complete mental health’ model need to be focused on, otherwise a cure of the symptoms of a mental illness would only lead to a state of ‘languishing’ (Slade, 2010).

The focus of our Wellbeing Ambassador Programme™ is not to ignore the need for mental illness support but to identify ways to increase wellbeing, to not only build greater resilience but also allow individuals to thrive.

Taking this concept into the workplace, mental ill health is becoming an increasingly important issue for employers because of the impact it is having on the productivity, turn over and absenteeism of employees. According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) (2018) 37% of organisations say stress-related absence is increasing and 55% say mental health conditions are. There is further suggestion that mental ill health is having increasing impacts on workplaces with a report from the Centre of Mental Health finding that costs to UK employers linked to mental health have risen from 25.9 billion pounds in 2006 to 34.9 billion in 2016/17 (Parsonage & Saini, 2017).

It is clear that focusing on wellbeing at work is essential to support people’s mental health and allow them to thrive. At Goldcrest we define thriving through our REST & RISE™ model where RISE stands for resilience, innovation, success and engagement. The research shows that wellbeing and performance are linked. If we allow people to rest, then they will be better able to rise.

References

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development [CIPD]. (2018). Health and wellbeing at work. Retrieved from https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/health-and-well-being-at-work_tcm18-40863.pdf

Keyes, C. L. M., & Lopez, S. J. (2002). Toward a science of mental health: Positive directions in diagnosis and interventions. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 45–59). New York: Oxford University Press

Parsonage, M., & Saini, G. (2017). Mental Health at Work: The business costs 10 years on. Centre for Mental Health. Retrieved from https://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/mental-health-at-work-report#report

Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.5

Slade, M. (2010). Mental illness and well-being: The central importance of positive psychology and recovery approaches. BMC Health Services Research, 10. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-10-26