Enduring Mental Health: Prevalence and Prediction

Abstract:<p>&gt; We review epidemiological evidence indicating that most people will develop a diagnosable mental disorder, suggesting that only a minority experience enduring mental health. This minority has received little empirical study, leaving the prevalence and predictors of enduring mental health unknown. We turn to the population-representative Dunedin cohort, followed from birth to midlife, to compare people never-diagnosed with mental disorder (N = 171; 17% prevalence) to those diagnosed at 1–2 study waves, the cohort mode (N = 409). Surprisingly, compared to this modal group, never-diagnosed Study members were not born into unusually well-to-do families, nor did their enduring mental health follow markedly sound physical health, or unusually high intelligence. Instead, they tended to have an advantageous temperament&#x2F;personality style, and negligible family history of mental disorder. As adults, they report superior educational and occupational attainment, greater life satisfaction, and higher-quality relationships. Our findings draw attention to “enduring mental health” as a revealing psychological phenotype and suggest it deserves further study.

Summary:<p>Study was done with a largely Caucasian, New Zealand cohort born in the 1970s.<p>Factors which correlate with enduring mental health:<p>Childhood factors:<p>- little evidence of strong negative emotions<p>- social support and sociability<p>- self-control<p>Familiy environment factors:<p>- fewer first- and second-degree relatives with mental health issues<p>- less negative discipline<p>- reduced likelihood of parental loss<p>Not relevant:<p>- socioeconomic advantage<p>- perinatal complications<p>- physical health<p>- intelligence

I know that in my close group of friends more than half have opened up about dealing with depression but that it might be that way for the general population is counter-intuitive to me. It makes sense when you think about it, though: Obviously the couple walking down the street are going to seem happy, and all the acquaintances you see once a month won&#x27;t be the ones opening up to you.

It feels anecdotally correct. Consider things like depression as a result of bereavement or child birth (for women). Insomnia , anxiety , etc. So many ways to be “mentally ill” temporarily.<p>That said it does seem that the extreme prevalence of something over a long period of time makes dubious the claim that it is a “mental illness”.<p>It feels like treating people as defective for falling over because they don’t have 3 legs ...

The entire field o mental health revolves around the idea that there is some sort of &#x27;this is how brains are meant to work&#x27;. In extreme cases that works well (eg, lead poisoning), in edge cases there is a lot of grey.<p>One uncomfortable part of mild depression is the questions around how correct it is. It is easy to logically deduce depression as a rational response to the world.

Comments here are predictably (and depressingly) misstating this research as &quot;medicalizing normal emotions.&quot; This is due to two widespread misconceptions:<p>1) A refusal to distinguish between mental illness and permanent psychological disability (along with the idea that all mental illnesses are neurostructural in nature)<p>2) A refusal to acknowledge that &quot;biologically normal&quot; human emotions can nevertheless be a cause for medical concern, in the sense that a high fever is a &quot;normal&quot; and necessary response to infection that can nevertheless cause serious problems.<p>If someone is deeply depressed after their mother dies, they should be considered as having a mental injury that should heal on its own but needs to be monitored for &quot;infection&quot; or otherwise problematic healing. Saying ahead of time &quot;this person isn&#x27;t mentally ill so this is just normal bereavement&quot; is bad medicine and bad science.<p>US society in particular (but also humans in general) really wants to draw a distinction between &quot;the mentally ill&quot; and &quot;the mentally well.&quot; If you were to try to draw a similarly strong distinction between &quot;people with stomach problems&quot; and &quot;people without stomach problems&quot; the absurdity would be self-evident: there is no reason to lump people with norovirus in with people with IBD. But because mental illness is so much more mysterious (and, frankly, scary), and so entwined with social and societal expectations and norms, it is much harder to approach it from the same medical-first perspective.

Wow could there be better evidence of medicalizing “normal” than this article