Let’s Change The Term “Mental Health”

I agree 100% that "mental health" carries stigma, and I salute you for trying to find a new term.

I'm iffy on "brain health" for two reasons:
_____ 1. It's very broad, encompassing things like memory loss and cognitive function.
_____ 2. As someone whose depression and anxiety stem from having been the target, from toddlerhood on (if not earlier), of a narcissistic mother and two bullying (and possibly narcissistic) older sibs, I'm fighting against the notion that my challenges are the result of some inherent brain abnormality rather than a toxic environment. To me, "brain health" lets the toxic relatives who did so much damage off the hook.
. . . . . (I acknowledge that our experiences carve neural pathways and therefore my family did affect my brain, but to me "brain health" puts the onus on the person whose brain it is rather than on those who did the damage.)

I sincerely apologize to you all, because in my original post I meant to say, “Let’s Change The Term Mental Illness” and NOT “Let’s Change The Term Mental Health”. The term “mental illness” consists of two words that, unfortunately, each have a negative connotation, especially the word “mental”. Again, last post, and I sincerely apologize for this confusion.

Thank you so much for all the great info! I really appreciate it, and I do think you are right about it being Mental Health. I guess the reason I asked is that I have several neurological diseases that I was told "feed the disorder" and make it harder for me to try to fight the depression and anxiety. Again, thanks!
P

I just came upon your post after not checking in for a bit...and you "hit the nail on the head" (I guess that's sort of a (very) weak 'no pun intended')!

I've been thinking about this for a while and can only agree 100+%. The negative connotation is inescapable, and really doesn't advance the cause. Anxious to read all of the comments following your post, but couldn't wait to respond to this initial post.

Thank goodness there is this awareness, and maybe some way we can once and for all at least address the label - I can tell you it intimidates many, and the one I'm particularly thinking of wouldn't admit to any such challenges, but surely there can be a more compassionate, empathetic, even neutral word or phrase that won't close the door before many even approach it.

Onward! (Hey!, maybe this forum could even offer some solid suggestions - but to whom? Maybe Glenn Close and her sister of NAMI, for starters...?)

Hopeful.

Ditto - extremely well-put: thank you.

... Adding to that, and reinforcing it:

The imprinting is at the most vulnerable stage - childhood - to those who otherwise are (or would have been) 'mentally healthy', and it is due to external factors.

This is a dilemma.

Very interesting discussion and I really appreciate the points of view of everyone here, thank you for sharing this…
This area is something I am passionate about because I am a former occupational therapist, and I provide support to people who are experiencing distress (I’ve just been accepted into post grad diploma of counseling so I can hopefully get paid once I finish! I can’t work in the community due to an immune disorder and other disabilities, so I want to tailor work around remote access over internet and phone..-side note☺️).
Ok this is what I’ve been rolling around in my mind regarding this topic: the term mental illness does unfortunately invoke negativity, due to the instigation and perpetuation of stigma that has been allowed to develop in society, in association with that term.
The term mental health is somewhat ambiguous, because ‘health’ has widely varying interpretations depending on the perception of the observer/beholder, and ‘illness’ has a somewhat narrower scope in perception (meaning, people can view ‘health’ in a variety of ways, however they may view illness as being something easier to define as a state of un-wellness).
Ok..brain health includes intrinsic factors that presume the illness comes from within (so well discussed above when environment is the contributing factor to illness), so this isn’t wholly applicable to apply as a descriptive term to ‘mental illness’ either..this is given perspective when using terms like kidney (or other organ or organ system) health or illness, where the dysfunction originated *from* that organ…🤔
Hmm. Ok, so I think brain health can apply to brain injury or cognitive decline, because it is a physical change in the tissue (either suddenly or over time) that primarily did not originate from psychological or behavioural change (even they may be secondary..more on that in a second), and impacts on the organ itself from its prior organ-function/structure state to a changed organ-function/structure state (this being a uniquely defining event that demonstrates change from one state to another within the organ, like how previously not blocked cardiac arteries can then become blocked which is then deemed physical changes to that organ, for instance, that lead to it having changed function or higher risk for other outcomes of health).
Having said that, I think a term that may work is psychological and/or emotional health, which focuses on other outcomes of brain activity that aren’t directly associated with structure or physical change from an event (whether acute like TBI or evolving like amyloidosis dementia), and refer to the aspects of change directly related to psychology and emotion.
I think this is a more legitimising term, because in other realms of care, the professional and the state of unwellness have some common nouns; cardiologist for cardiac health, pulmonologist for lung health, nephrologist for kidney health… I think psychologist/psychiatrist for psychological and or emotional health sounds a much more apt descriptor.
When I am referring to advocacy work I am undertaking across the nation or in my state (I live in Au), I always refer to ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’ as ‘psychological states of health or unwellness’, and I always ensure the term is framed descriptively, rather than personally (respecting people in general and person’s individually to ensure their agency and autonomy is upheld).
And lastly, when I am working with someone, I always ask them what their preferred identifier is for what they are living with, because they may frame their entire health in a totally different construct, and I should be respectful of that difference, because knowing that difference will facilitate an opportunity to use their framework to help them in the most appropriate way (rather than trying to change them and get them to overlay their own construct with an external construct of health - think how different cultures see perspectives of health..not everyone sees their body the same as another person does).
What do you guys think?
PS: the term psychological health can also encompass extrinsic influencers, like lived experience/environmental factors; this is an important difference between mental health/mental illness/brain health that may not be as encompassing. And this also clarifies brain health (physical or neurological changes or conditions) and psychological health into clearly identifiable categories that then can have sub categories of particular conditions (ie: brain injury as a sub category of brain health) can interact and influence/be influenced by psychological health (ie: anxiety as a sub category of psychological health) that can influence/be influenced by brain health. I think this distinction is warranted, because the brain is the only bodily organ that functions to influence how we interact with and interpret everting outside of ourselves, so two different categories (brain/organ health) and that engagement of self with everything outside of self (psychological and/or emotional health) should be clearly described, which may facilitate much better understanding (ie: knowing with clarity that additional functional dimension of the brain in influencing our interactions with the world and how impactful psychological health and wellbeing is to a persons function in their world (both in themselves and around them).

I favor your proposed phrase "psychological health" (if I understand correctly that is the wording you are suggesting).

While I don't have further ideas at this time for additional phrases, it is important to add to this discussion that 'psychological health' is not currently able to be measured, let alone resolved, by instruments in the way that physical health is in today's medical profession.

What seems key to the struggle to provide an apt label here is this: physical location/s currently cannot be scanned or clearly identified as an 'objective' source of the 'psychological illness', thus the medical profession cannot then use its current approach/es (pharmaceuticals, treatments (e.g., radiation) or surgery) to resolve or at least lessen the impact of the psychological turmoil. Therefore, current medical terminology comes up wanting.

Caveat: I know, as we all do, that research is ongoing, with advances in tools like TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), DBS (deep brain stimulation), pharmaceuticals and more (and, thankfully, the ceasing of the use of lobotomies and other such archaic surgical methods). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3984894/

But I think those of us in this discussion would all agree that pinpointed, targeted, successful remedies remain elusive in our current medical profession, hence the difficulty in effectively naming this type of health struggle in words for something our society has yet to effectively understand and treat in the first place.

Does this help frame the struggle to find a more descriptive, and hence useful, name for what we are challenged with?

Indeed; accurate measurement is currently not achieved from what I can ascertain (current psychometric tools have significant flaws when viewed from different perspectives insofar as they don’t account for contributing symptomatology when it’s not psychological in origin, for one), and it’s clearly unmeasurable by current existing physical health measurement tools (hence why they aren’t reliably used from what I understand).
This is why I feel the proposal of nomenclature that aligns with demystification as well as specialty would be a robust foundation to start with, and then development of clear frameworks from there may indeed be developed (a different approach to the traditional methodologies that seem to mix organ heath and functional outcomes of brain function - something that doesn’t work because organ health doesn’t align with the functional outcomes/outputs of brain activity in many instances of psychological health concerns).
My sister uses deep brain stimulation to manage essential tremor that she was born with, however practitioner confusion as to whether this was structural or functional/psychological or even psychosomatic (🤦🏻‍♀️) made it even more evident to me that a classification system based on the unique functions and engagement in society (psychological health) as well as the structural status (organ health) was required.
While there is ‘muddy water’ between the understanding of what each do and how their function can impact a person and their opportunities in society, then we will falter in supporting people to the fullest extent.
As a side note, I also believe that taking a much more transparent, easily identifiable approach to organ/psychological health approaches, we can then develop much better means of assessment, interventions, and evaluation of support mechanisms including medications, psychotherapies, and self-supporting tools.
I don’t feel like the current mechanisms are working, and so we need a totally different approach from the ‘ground up’…and after seeing a friend very close to being subjected to ECT without her consent due to the systemic failures existing in Au (including the confusion regarding organ/psychological health perspectives and approaches), we - here, anyway - need a radically better system of approach to health treatment of what is currently called mental health.

The label "Behavioral Health" seems to be trending, which apparently groups substance abuse with emotional/psychiatric issues.
Not a fan of this trend...

Brain Health encompasses more than mental health, dementia is one for an example.

Mental Health works for me a chemical imbalance that affects ones ability to function normally on a day to day basis. Your brain is alive yet not operating properly. Meds can help.

Dementia is when the brain is dying, there are no meds that can make it right, to stop the process.

In the end they are only words, we are continuing to develop new words to say exactly the same thing they were intended to mean 50 years ago, it is all a play on words to become more socially accepted. Personally, I do not care.