Adolescent Mental Health

Introduction

Health is the state of efficiency, and Physical, mental, and social well-being, and not just the absence of disease. Although the absence of mental disease have been linked to the psychological health, (negative definition), current researches suggest several attributes and criteria (indexes) that should be measured objectively and subjectively (positive definition) [1]. The best definition of mental health is the "Positive emotional, behavioral, and mental state that can be seen in higher level of personal and social adjustment in personality, signed in several attribute or aspects" [2]. Some researchers indicated that the following attributes have been found to be important for good mental health 1) Positive emotions: overall, how happy do I feel? 2) Engagement: taking an interest in your work and activities 3) Relationships: having people in your life that you care for and who cares about you, 4) Meaning and purpose: feeling that what you do in life is valuable and worthwhile, 5) Accomplishment: feeling that what you do gives you a sense of accomplishment and makes you feel competent, 6) Emotional stability: feeling calm and peaceful, 7) Optimism: feeling positive about your life and your future, 8) Resilience: being able to bounce back in the face of adversity, 9) Self-esteem: feeling positive about oneself, 10) Vitality: feeling energetic. Mental health defined as "A state of mind characterized by emotional well-being, relative freedom from anxiety and disabling symptoms, and a capacity of establish constructive relationships and cope with the ordinary demands and stresses of life. And according to Alfred Adler the basic challenges and obligations of life are society, work, and family. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) illustrated how climate changes impacts physical, mental and community health (APA) [2 a]. Definitions and descriptions of adolescent mental health are beginning to be grounded in psychologists, empirical studies of a wide variety of pattern of adaptation to adolescence. Powers, Hauser and kilner (1989) have been described three major themes guiding research relevant to mental health in adolescence [3]: 1) A focus on analysis of interindividual differences to describe a variety in adaptation, 2) The integration of biological, psychological, social and cultural variables in models of adolescence, 3) An analysis on the development aspects of adolescent’s mental health. Regarding the criteria of mental health, psychologists illustrated few indexes as criteria of adolescent mental health: 1) Subjective (Personal will being/ Distress), 2) Statistical criteria (Normality /Deviation), 3) Clinical (the absence of disorders), 4) Social-Cultural criteria (Non-conformity to social forms or deviance), 5) Psychiatric criteria (The absence of mental disorder) [2]. Another researcher described these aspects- indexes in 3 components of maladaptive behavior in the model of Three D elements: (Dysfunction, Distress, and Deviance) [1, 4, 5].

In addition, other researchers purposed the following mental health index that includes four continuums: 1) Psychological distress v Psychological well-being, 2) Loss of behavioral – emotional control v Emotional ties and stability, 3) Depression v General positive effect, 4) Anxiety v life satisfaction. Peterson (1989) stated that there are three interrelated components to psychological well-being: life satisfaction, pleasant affect, and unpleasant affect. Psychological well-being relates to how people subjectively evaluate their lives cognitively and affectively [6]. According to the developmental period of adolescence, it is important to relate the developmental tasks/ demands and psychosocial needs and motives of adolescents to the aspect mental health. Of this viewpoint, some researcher aimed to investigate the adolescent mental health according to existential/humanistic perspective especially logo therapy in clinical psychology [7]. Awareness and acceptance trust of one's self and others, wiliness freedom, and responsibility, personal adjustment, social adjustment, courage and problem solving, straightness, reality and object's perception, love of one’s self and others, and finally, life's purpose and meaning. It can be concluded that, psychologists are not in a position to precisely define healthy adolescence or normal adolescents. We are in the midst of determining a variety of criteria and aspects of health adolescent personality. Many variable and factors should be impact on this state as defined. Some of these factors are individual and group differences, developmental tasks of adolescence in relations to sociocultural contexts. Finally, the assessing psychological health and well-being rest on scoring the adolescent manner, experience and performance, in addition, the evaluation must include the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral component regarding the social-cultural context.