I have heard of preventive mental health, but not of positive mental health. Why the new term?
Positive mental health is different from preventive mental health, which entails attending to risk factors, in that it does not suggest that all disorders are preventable or curable by early intervention. Rather, a positive mental health approach uses crisis as an opportunity for fundamental change. The objective is not to directly decrease the symptoms of disease, but to actively increase the positive factors in an individual’s life beyond a previous best level of adjustment. When this is achieved, symptoms often disappear, and a new pattern of coping emerges.
