Mental Health as a Public Social Problem

We define the concept of mental health on the basis of the realization that mental health is not just a health phenomenon anymore, but also a social and psychological one. By defining mental health separately from mental illnesses, it is placed into the concept of public health, which exceeds the medical definition of the determination of a “mental illness”. The anthropology of health defines the medical treatment as a social practice, which takes into consideration a person’s social context, the differences between genders, the connection of personal and social. It accents the characteristics of social systems, values and manifestations of social crises through basic concepts and discourses, like gender and culture. Besides the consideration of health and disease, it enables also the consideration of a person in a highly industrialized society and of a culture as a totality. The phenomenon of destructive ways of manifesting psychic crises requires the recognizing of mental health as a social problem.