The Concept Of Mental Health

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Race, by definition, refers to biological characteristics of individuals as reflected in their physical appearance (Lyndonna Marrast, David U. Himmelstein, and Steffie Woolhandler, 2016) Contrary to popular race, the concept of race is not something that is intrinsic to human nature; in other words, it is an aspect of society that has been socially constructed with the intention of separation and segregation. Usually, those that are placed into racial categories are associated with certain prejudices and biases that are the result of multiple stereotypes that are perpetuated in our society; for example, there are multiple stigmas of African Americans in today’s society. As a result, this has allowed for the development of a specific way of …show more content…

It involves a living human organism, or more precisely, the conditioning of an individual human mind. A social environment or culture may be conducive either to sickness or health, but the quality produced is characteristic only a person. (Joahado, M.,1958) In other words, mental health is a result of not only the thoughts, ideas, and aspects of an individual, but also of the way in which he perceives his environment. Six major approaches to the subject of mental health include: Attitudes of the individual toward himself; b. Degree to which person realizes his potentialities through action; c. Unification of function in the individual’s personality; d. Individual’s degree of independence of social influences; e. How the individual sees the world around him; and f. Ability to take life as it comes and master it. (Jaohado, M. 1958) At least two or more of these major approaches to the subject are highly influenced by the prejudices and biases that result in the production and perpetuation of certain stereotypes that target individuals, especially people of color; for example, the way in which a colored person, such as a Black person, views himself is extremely influenced through constant media perpetuation of black people only being associated with crime and murder and being identified as violent individuals. As a result, this also affects another major approach to mental health, how the individual perceives the world around him, thus …show more content…

This will provide further evidence concerning the correlation between mental health and race. Additionally, the condition of the stability of the mental health of these students will be analyzed and compared to evaluate the presence of a negative or positive correlation between mental health and race; for example, are Caucasian individuals more likely to be more mentally stable than Black

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