World Mental Health Day: Do We Need It?
What is mental health? According to the World Health Organization, the United Nations agency responsible for leadership and guidance on health-related issues globally, mental health is a state of mental well-being and the foundation of our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in. It is crucial to personal, community and socio-economic development. In my therapy practice, most clients’ issues can be traced back to lack of attention to their mental health as they were growing. Parents either have little or no information about the psychological needs of infants and this continues, as they grow, into adolescence and adulthood - in schools, institutions of higher learning and eventually, workplaces. It is only recently that schools and workplaces have begun to see the need to hire counsellors. How bad is the mental health picture? Worldwide, a round 20 percent of the world’s children and adolescents ha...