Mental Health, Illness and Addiction Teaching activities and resources

The definition of mental health is much more holistic than it once was. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada it is: “The capacities of each and all of us to feel, think, and act in ways that enhance our ability to enjoy life and deal with the challenges we face. It is a positive sense of emotional and spiritual well-being that respects the importance of culture, equity, social justice, interconnections, and personal dignity” (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2014, para 2). However, mental health and mental illness are not the same thing. Mental illness is “a recognized, medically diagnosable illness that results in the significant impairment of an individual’s cognitive, affective or relational abilities. Mental disorders result from biological, developmental and/or psychosocial factors and can be managed using approaches comparable to those applied to physical disease (i.e., prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation)” (Epp, J., 2009, p. 82).

The “mental health continuum” best describes the relationship between health and illness where they are not at opposite ends of a single spectrum but on a continuum (Keyes, 2002). Every person can flourish or languish somewhere along the mental health continuum, and this state can vary on a daily basis. Inherent in the mental health continuum is the understanding that mental health is not simply the absence of mental illness. Rather the model adopts the notion that individuals can experience complete mental health even if they have been diagnosed with a mental illness (Keyes, 2002). On the other hand, individuals who are free of a diagnosed mental illness can still experience poor mental health if they have poor coping mechanisms. A useful tool for gaining further insight is the 2015 First Nations Mental Wellness Continuum Framework, which views mental well-being as “a balance of the mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional” that gives everyone—even the most vulnerable or mentally ill—an opportunity to live whole and healthy lives (Health Canada, 2015).

There is a relationship between being resilient and having good mental health. People who are “resilient” are able to recover from difficulties or change and move forward as they were before the disruption (Khanlou & Barankin, 2007). However, people who are resilient can develop a mental illness, which may lower resiliency (Khanlou & Barankin, 2007). Because nurses working in all practice settings along the continuum of health care will care for people with varying degrees of mental health and illnesses, they should be aware of and understand ways to improve resiliency in their interactions. Furthermore, faculty should impart not only the importance of using mental and illness knowledge to care for and impact populations, but to take leadership roles in advancing mental health promotion and driving improvements in mental health care delivery (CFMHN, 2016). Promoting mental health in fact encourages the development of resilience by implementing strategies that build on community-based strengths, provide opportunities, create safe places and encourage supportive resiliency (Khanlou & Barankin, 2007, p. 10).