Mental health is typically understood negatively, with a focus on what is not healthy

We need to advance more positive ideas about mental health as working models.

Erich Fromm's insights offer strong notions of well-being.

Our discourse is saturated with talk of mental health, often with resources to back this up. Mental health has assumed a (rightful) place at the top of the health pyramid, and we are better for it. A central irony in this “era of mental health,” however, is that we often lack a clear or consensus definition of it as a workable term and concept. Mindful of this gap, I offer some thoughts from mid-20th-century psychologist Erich Fromm as a potential guide toward a positive notion of mental health.

What Mental Health Is Not

In recent years, I designed a course called What Is Mental Health? and began by asking a simple question: “What does mental health look like?” This always produces a perplexed response and no easy answer. People usually know what poor mental health looks like—anxiety, depression, low mood, low motivation, panic attacks, paranoia, etc. This is easy. When faced with the opposite, however—good mental health—we usually need more than simply saying “no anxiety” or “no depression.”

A conversation about mental health thus evokes broader questions about well-being, wellness, and what a “good enough” life looks like. This yields different and competing answers. Is mental health about happiness? For some, yes. But what does happiness look like? Surely good mental health also involves accepting and acknowledging sadness, grief, and distress at times.

We often encounter this problem in interpersonal needs. Being anxious, jealous, or neurotic in a relationship is not ideal and likely needs work. However, simply eradicating need or vulnerability—becoming absolutely independent and invulnerable—is not any clinician’s picture of good mental well-being. We are inherently and inalienably vulnerable and interdependent creatures. To remove all vulnerability or anxiety would be both a mythical aim and unsatisfying in practice. There is a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction that can come from being vulnerable in the presence of another.

Well-Being According to Erich Fromm

In 1960, the German-American psychologist outlined, in an interview, some principles of well-being or mental health as he saw them.

He began with the bold claim that so-called “normal people” are more sick than those who are neurotic. As an immigrant to America, Fromm viewed American culture as a sea of distraction that gives the appearance of well-being but masks underlying stress and discontent. He argued that people maintain a “managed illusion” of well-being or happiness but do not exemplify a strong picture of mental health.

You See It When You See It

If well-being isn’t simply happiness or looking “normal,” what is it? Fromm suggests first that well-being appears empirically, on the surface: you see it when you see it. By this, he means that well-being involves a certain degree of energy or vitality in an individual who is not obsessive or neurotic. Recognizing this is something we can all do, though it may require honing or sharpening.

We all may know people who fit this description—people who are not free from periods of distress or sadness, but who generally have a sense of energy and vitality. Life is not heavy or burdensome for them. They are able to meet challenges without being crippled or overwhelmed.

Those Who Can Be Alone With Themselves

His second criterion for mental health is the ability to be alone with oneself. Even in the 1960s, Fromm noted how many people busy themselves with distractions—activities, tasks, entertainment—and do not spend much time alone. This observation still holds true today, especially in discussions around dopamine and addiction.

When people wean themselves off addictive practices (sex, screens, vaping, alcohol), they often feel tremendously bored, isolated, and alone. Their thoughts and feelings may have returned to them and can trigger restlessness and irritability.

Conversely, someone who has practiced being alone with themselves can usually manage and “surf” the variety of thoughts that arise throughout the day. These may sometimes be dark or self-critical, but can also fill us with wonder, curiosity, and self-love. In Fromm’s view, someone who constantly distracts themselves loses access to the fullness of their being, both good and bad.

The Capacity to Be Happy and Sad

Well-being also involves the ability to experience multiple emotions as we move through life. It includes the capacity to feel pleasure and joy when something is joyful, and sadness and anger when we are threatened or harmed.

While Fromm does not explicitly discuss it, a likely issue here is emotional numbness. Numbness can be a result of trauma and may serve as a protective mechanism against further pain. “Health,” therefore, can feel painful or difficult when one begins to loosen these numbing strategies. Experiencing pain, loss, or grief can be signs of mental health, in that one has allowed oneself to feel and be affected by events. This openness also allows for the experience of positive emotions.

An Unending Interest in People and Things

When we are mentally unwell, we often lose interest in people, activities, and things that once brought us pleasure. Life may feel boring, meaningless, or flat. This can be a protective response to past trauma or hurt—why take interest in someone if they might disappoint or harm us?

Good enough mental health, then, involves managing our symptoms well enough to move beyond excessive self-focus (our suffering or hang-ups) and turn toward others. People are endlessly interesting and intriguing. We often cannot see this, or feel curiosity about others, when we are absorbed in our symptoms—such as social anxiety or a harsh inner critic. Well-being here involves developing enough inner resilience to engage with others without fear of losing oneself.

A Capacity for Realism

Finally, a mentally healthy person, according to Fromm, is someone who can see and respond to the world as it is. This involves a certain clarity and maturity—being able to distinguish oneself (one’s history and experiences) from the world as it presents itself.

This means seeing the world not through idealistic childhood lenses, but with the maturity of age—recognizing both kindness and cruelty in people, and the joys and misfortunes of reality. It also means responding to situations not out of reflex or habit (patterns formed for survival), but based on what is required in the present moment.

These characteristics are undoubtedly ambitious, but they offer a strong model for what we might aspire to in a positive conception of mental health.

Erich Fromm on Mental Health (1960). Uploaded Feb. 3, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhbSUeL-foU

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