The conundrum of mental health- Where well-being and mental illness meet

Introduction

The past couple decades, evidence has shown that children’s and adolescents’ well-being declines and their mental health problems increase. Some people conflate mental health with well-being, whilst others consider mental health to be the absence of mental illness. Mental health should be viewed through a holistic approach that puts forward a dual-continuum model that encompasses positive and negative mental health. In this model, well-being is the positive aspects of mental health, whereas mental illnesses are the negative indicators of mental health. The crucial question is how should we deal with children’s and adolescents’ mental health problems? There are two main approaches to this issue. The first approach is through the lens of the biomedical model, where mental health is discussed in terms of biological causes. Meanwhile, the second approach is through the biopsychosocial model that recognises both biological and psychosocial influences on mental health.