Joe Humphreys outlines the elements of a campaign to increase "the tonnage of happiness" in the Irish population
People tend to think of mental health as the absence of mental illness. If you haven't been committed to a psychiatric institution then you're mentally healthy. Right?
Wrong, says Prof Ciaran O'Boyle of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Just as physical fitness means more than freedom from incapacitation, so mental health means more than lack of depression.
"Mental health and mental illness are not opposite sides of the same coin," says the professor of psychology, who blames his own discipline for helping people to think otherwise. "Clinical psychology has been particularly interested in mental illness and what happens when people get sick. But that's just a small percentage of the population. We shouldn't forget about the rest of the population, and their mental health."
Thankfully, he says the focus of psychology is changing - in part due to influential "positive" psychologists, like Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania. The US academic argues that psychology should concentrate at least as much on "increasing the tonnage of happiness" in the population as a whole, as on "reducing the tonnage of happiness" in the small but significant number who suffer mental illnesses.
O'Boyle supports this repositioning of psychology, which he hopes to advance in an Irish context through a major new study - supported by Mental Health Ireland (MHI) - into attitudes towards mental health and happiness.
Speaking of the research project, which is due to be completed early next year, O'Boyle says: "We thought we would bring this new thinking, international thinking, to an Irish context, and to look for the first time at the levels of satisfaction, well-being, or positivity in the Irish population.
"We will use the same kind of measures that have been used internationally so that we can compare, and that will give us a jumping-off point for designing interventions, strategies or policies that might actually improve matters for people," he adds. MHI has outlined its preference for policies at individual, community and Governmental levels.
The group says people should be aware of initiatives that will improve the quality of their mental health. At community level, there should be greater social inclusion, group activities and good neighbourliness, which together - according to MHI - have a "major impact" on improving people's mental health.
The Government, meanwhile, should address "the environmental factors which impact on mental health (ranging from poverty, poor housing and inadequate public services, to increased investment in mental health promotion measures)," says MHI.
Prof O'Boyle agrees strategies are needed, particularly at Governmental level, given the Government's general health strategy Quality and Fairness "talks only about illness. You would go blind looking for it (mental health) in the strategy."
"The thinking is too narrow," he adds. "We need to think more creatively because we have a post-modern society that is moving very rapidly in a very fragmentary way. We have increase in young suicides, increase in crisis pregnancies. We have a huge increase in alcohol intake particularly among young people. You are getting barometers coming through saying all is not well with the fabric of society, and I think we really need to respond to that in a bit more creatively than heretofore."
One of the most alarming statistics to emerge from the US in recent years is an increase in depression among young people. "The figures show the risk of depression increases significantly with each generation."
Drawing on one of Seligman's theories, O'Boyle speaks of three levels of happiness: "hedonic", or pleasure-based happiness, which is generally transient; "flow" - which is happiness derived from involvement in a specialist activity; and "meaning".
"People have to feel their lives are meaningful, and that's probably where the crux of the matter is for a lot of people, particularly in Ireland because they have lost some of the traditional edifices which have given them meaning, like the Church. And there is a cynicism about the State as well."
He adds: "I just see more and more people struggling, where they feel the kind of life they are forced to lead in the rat-race is at variance with what they feel their own values to be. People find it very difficult to bring their lifestyle back in line with their values because they are making compromises all the time, on family, for instance. They are being forced to compromise continually, and that is very tiring. It burns people out."
A survey which Prof O'Boyle carried out for MHI in 2001 showed three quarters of Irish people felt life had become more stressful in the previous five years. Reversing this trend, he says, will benefit not just individuals but the economy. Studies show happier people earn more, are more productive, have more satisfied customers, tend to stay in marriages longer, and suffer fewer physical illnesses.
Further research suggests that happier people are more likely to use "democratic means of management" rather than force. "It may well be there are very real political advantages in bringing up the level of positive emotion in the society because that then feeds into underpinning the democratic process."
He rejects the claim that, by trying to make people happier, the Government is engaging in social engineering, or "brainwashing".
"In fact, it's the opposite," he says, "because people are brainwashed into being unhappy. Through the media, people are being selectively exposed to all the really negative things in the world, and over time that can wear you down. You need to set up for yourself cognitive strategies to protect yourself to some extent. You need to focus on what is good in the world and good in your life. It's all about creating balance."
To mark World Mental Health Day next Sunday, October 10th, Mental Health Ireland (MHI) is issuing 50,000 postcards - aimed at 18-35 year-olds - offering advice and guidance on positive mental health. The cards will be distributed through colleges, pubs, restaurants and places of entertainment.
A programme of lectures, exhibitions and other events is also scheduled for this month involving many of the 95 local organisations affiliated to MHI.
For further details see: www.mentalhealthireland.ie, or contact MHI at (01) 284 1166.
Pharmaceutical company Lundbeck Ireland is also holding a series of public information seminars on "positive mental health" this week. Seminars will take place at the Gresham Metropole Hotel in Cork this evening, and at Menlo Park Hotel in Galway tomorrow. Speakers include Prof Patricia Casey, consultant psychiatrist at the Mater Hospital, Dublin. Call 0818 719 305 to request a free ticket for the event.