1. Mental Health Introduction

2. Mental/Emotional Health
The ability to accept yourself and others, adapt to and manage emotions, and deal with demands and challenges you meet in life.

3. Characteristics of Good Mental/Emotional Health
Positive Self-Esteem
Confidence in yourself and able to accept challenges and take failure in stride
Sense of Belonging
Attachment to family, friends, and others around you for comfort and it promotes stability
Sense of Purpose
Recognizing own value and importance helps to achieve goals
Positive Outlook
Seeing the bright side of having hope
Autonomy
Confidence to make responsible decisions and promotes self-assurance

4. Personality
A set of characteristics that makes you unique

5. Influences on Personality
Heredity
Determine a person’s basic intellectual ability and temperament or emotional tendencies
Environment
Everything that surrounds you in day-to-day life
Modeling- observing and learning from behaviors of those around you
Behavior
The one that you have the most control over. Decisions you make, consequences, etc.

6. Personal Identity Your sense of yourself as a unique individual
Interests, likes/dislikes, talents/abilities, values/beliefs, and goals
Short-term goals
Long-term goals

7. Emotions Signals that tell your mind and body how to react
Hormones are secreted by the glands and regulate the activities of different body cells
Happy, Sad, Love, Empathy
Ability to imagine and understand how someone else feels
Fear
From an imagined threat can lead to not leading a normal life- turn into phobia
Guilt, Anger, Hostility
Intentional use of unfriendly or offensive behavior

8. Common Defense Mechanisms
Repression
Involuntary pushing of unpleasant feelings out of conscious thought
Suppression
Conscious, intentional pushing of unpleasantness from one’s mind
Rationalization
Making excuses to explain a situation or behavior rather than taking responsibility for it
Regression
Reverting to behaviors more characteristic of an earlier stage of development rather than dealing with the conflict in a mature manner

9. Defense Mechanisms Cont.
Denial
Unconscious lack of acknowledgement of something that is obvious to others
Compensation
Making up for weakness and mistakes through gift-giving, hard work, or extreme efforts
Projection
Attributing your own feelings or faults to another person or group
Idealization
Seeing someone else as perfect, ideal, or more worthy than everyone else