In the general sense, mental health represents the ability to love, work, and play fully. The image of a mentally healthy person, however, is not as easily conjured as the physically healthy person. The societal view of physical health is measured in terms of numbers and dimensions, such as weight,  blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol, etc. These numbers in and of themselves, however, are meaningless without some frame of reference- some idea of relativity, to ourselves and others.

The normal “bell curve”- that which describes the majority- may or may not represent what is healthy. For example, the number of people who are overweight might create a preponderance of “numbers” which would create the look of the “bell curve” even though, in fact, being overweight is not a positive indicator of good physical health. Staying in good fit form is not easy’ and it may take a good deal of regular exercise and commitment.

The parallel to mental health is that, it too, is often measured against mental illness. Mental illness becomes the measurement against which mental health is compared. Sometimes, looking in the mirror is not always  the best way to determine health (mental or physical), because denial may distort the reflection.

Alice, Miller, wrote in her book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, that “we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional  discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood.”