Mental health is beyond the absence of mental illness. It is “a state of emotional and social well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community’”, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Mental health includes having the necessary life aptitude, social skills as well as having a balance in different aspects of life. It contributes to building resilience and improves individual learning potential.

Below are the descriptions of each stage of the mental health continuum:

Mental Wellness

Mental wellness or mental health support is about increasing proficiency, resilience, emotional and social well-being, as well as creating supportive atmospheres for all. It seeks to develop social and emotional competencies and life skills, and incorporate children and youth protective factors against mental illness.

Mental Health Problems

Mental health problems occur when someone is in a susceptible position of entering into the mental illness continuum. They do not have adequate resources and capacity to manage with the challenges they are facing and need better support from others to help them through the hard times. Some people with unsettled mental health problems might go to develop a mental illness.

Mental Illness

This stage is a more serious or ongoing medical problem, which needs medical treatment, support and diagnosis.

Mental illnesses can be put into two types – neuroses and psychoses.

Neuroses: Symptoms are typically of less severity than psychoses although they are distressing for those involved. The person is still in touch with reality. They are aware of the fact they are ill and have some worries over their illness.

Psychoses: Symptoms are generally severe so much so that the person really looses touch with the real world. People are usually not alert to the fact that they are ill or their actions are abnormal.

Mental illness can either be Chronic (lasts for a long time) or starts slowly Acute (short in duration, severe and unexpected).

Here are some examples of mental illness:

- Social anxiety disorder

- Schizophrenia

- Rett Syndrome

- Post-traumatic stress disorder

- Parkinson’s Disease

- Panic Disorder

- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

- Huntington disease

- Generalized anxiety disorder

- Depression

- Bulimia nervosa

- Borderline Personality Disorder

- Bipolar disorder

- Autism

- Alzheimer’s disease

- Antisocial Personality Disorder

- Anorexia nervosa

- ADHD

Mental health is a significant issue facing Australia today. Estimates suggest that approximately 20% of the population will suffer some mental health issue in 2012 alone. The most common mental health issues that people suffer from are Anxiety and/or Depression. This article looks at mental health in the law and looks at ways of becoming more optimistic to overcome these issues.

A world-renowned authority in Happiness research Dr Martin Seligman takes a different view towards mental health than the profession of clinical psychology has historically taken. Up until the late 1990s, mental health was conceptualised as being about “What is Wrong With You”? Providing people with a diagnosis. For example, “You’re Depressed!” “You’re Anxious!” “You’re Bi-Polar!” These diagnoses were based on the DSM-IV. The DSM-V will be released in 2013. The DSM-IV detailed the symptoms for each psychological issue and clinical psychologists and psychiatrists were able to diagnose, “label people” and treat them based on it.

Seligman was instrumental in what is known as the “Positive Psychology” movement, which moved away from the “labeling” or “diagnosing” method towards focusing on the positive. In his book Learned Optimism he detailed methods (based on research) about how you can improve your happiness and mental health (detailed at the end of this article) and introduced a concept called Optimism. Which is the way that people look at success and failure in their life (more on this later in the article).

He went on to look at individuals in optimistic professions and those in pessimistic professions. For example, he classified the Law as a pessimistic profession! Why? Generally lawyers are looking at fault, why people or organisations can’t do something? Are you going to be exposed? When working in a firm environment for example, the mindset created is of making sure that you don’t make a mistake. Ingenuity or creativity is often not encouraged. A lot of lawyers can get into this pessimistic mindset very quickly and stay there. Where their work is only noticed when they make a mistake. Is this a sustainable way of operating? Will this negative motivation be able to sustain them throughout their career?

The happiness research suggests that optimists are happier, live longer and suffer from fewer mental health issues in life. The real question is how can you work as a lawyer and operate with an optimistic mindset? Optimism is about how you interpret your environment. For example, if a set-back happens to an optimist (e.g., your boss/ client is critical of their work), they will view it as an isolated event and not take the feedback personally, so that it doesn’t affect their confidence in future work projects. A pessimist will react in the opposite manner, believing that the criticism or negative event is a reflection on them personally and something that they are unable to change. In psychology will call this a global character attribution.

The first secret to becoming more optimistic in the Law (especially as a graduate), is how you handle criticism? When it occurs (which it will) try to attribute it or explain it to yourself based on specific task details rather than global or relationship dynamics (e.g., “They don’t like me”, “I’m not suited for the law”). Vice versa when positive events occur to you at work. Attribute them to global character traits (e.g., “I’m really suited to the law”) and not specific task areas (e.g., “I was lucky on that project”).

To finish this article (as promised) I’m going to summarise eight scientifically validated ways of improving your happiness and improving your mental health. They are:

• Count your blessings
• Practice acts of kindness
• Savor life’s joys
• Thank a mentor
• Learn to forgive
• Invest time and energy in friends and family
• Take care of your body
• Develop strategies for coping with stress and hardship

The Shaw Trust reported in 2010 that only 2 in 10 employers have a reactive or proactive mental health policy to support staff with mental ill health. What role does leadership have in addressing this challenging issue?

Employee mental well-being should be an integral part of the boardroom agenda, on a par with physical health. Leaders should insist that regular monitoring of progress or issues is reported to the board. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has found that 70% of employee mental health problems are either directly caused by work or by a combination of work and home. In light of this, there simply is no excuse for this not be a mainstream issue for leaders to address. By proactively managing mental well-being in the workplace, leaders are not only dealing with their legal and ethical responsibilities, they are also looking after their bottom line as well. Absenteeism and presenteeism are responsible for losing British organisations billions of pounds, so how can this subject be ignored.

All employers should include safeguarding mental well-being into their standard operations, particularly when employees and/or organisations are embarking on change processes, which can be and are very challenging times for everyone. Training from the leadership down in proactively managing mental well-being, including offering additional support to staff or simply leading by example, is essential. Safety net support such as coaching and occupational health needs to be incorporated into health and well-being policies.

Leaders should be ensuring that management have a huge positive impact on mental health. Good line managers are essential in spotting early signs of distress and initiating early intervention, whereas poor line managers may make the situation worse or even be the cause of mental health problems through their approach, management style of behaviour.

Leaders should be insisting that comprehensive and, more importantly, mandatory mental health training for line managers is introduced and embedded into the culture and development plans for their employees. This training and change in culture will ensure that the organisation develops employee resilience and emotional well-being.

Sadly it is all too easy to pension a person off on medical grounds without seeing people as more than cogs in the machine. Failing to recognise the need for support and the necessity for introducing policies and procedures offering support is costly in the long-term as human beings need support at times in their lives, even leaders.