Transcending Traditional Models in Mental Health: Understanding Subjective Well-being

2023-10-11 02:31:42

It is important to transcend traditional models in the understanding of mental health to begin to see subjective well-being as a key element in this task.

Within the framework of World Mental Health Day, this October 10, Dr. José Guadalupe Salazar Estrada, Rector of the Centro Universitario del Sur (CUSur), gave the keynote lecture “Mental health or emotional well-being.” Around 140 students from the different careers that make up the health sciences attended.

This conference was part of the activities carried out this week by the Institutional Health, Safety and Environment System (SISSMA) and the CUSur School Clinic, with the aim of raising awareness about the importance of mental health care for promote an environment of balance and health.

Dr. José Guadalupe Salazar Estrada explained that, in 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO), in a meeting with the European Commission, recognized the importance of transcending traditional models in the understanding of mental health to begin to see subjective well-being as a key element in this task. “They called it that without identifying what types of well-being could exist; They simply raised the need to search for pleasure or the need for emotional states,” Salazar Estrada mentioned.

Likewise, he commented that certain types of medications generate addiction in some cases for those who use them. For this reason, he explained that it is important to demedicalize health in general terms.

Furthermore, Dr. Salazar Estrada reported that a different paradigm must be identified than the one the population is accustomed to, such as treatments and prevention of the disease that is oriented toward the body. In this context, the only one who has the knowledge is the doctor, who knows the paradigm of medicine. At the same time, the part that must change is the positive health model, which implies an improvement in health by thinking about the body, but also about the social environment. For this, the therapist is a coach as part of health support.

Rector Salazar Estrada pointed out that the perception of quality of life consists of that person who is closest to achieving their expectations and achievements, unlike those who have very distant expectations and achievements. Therefore, quality of life is linked to personal well-being. “We never realize or make space for ourselves to see what I really want, what my true expectations are to be able to see where I stand.”

During the conference, Dr. Salazar Estrada asked the students why they study the degree they are currently studying, if they do it for the pleasure of studying or because it is a purpose they seek in their life. He used this reference to determine the concept of psychological well-being, which is the need for positive functioning towards a sense or meaning of one’s own existence, different from subjective well-being, which is determined by the search for pleasure and avoiding the pain. “Social well-being has become a public policy by countries in the world through the sustainable development goals, so psychological well-being is a process of those values ​​that make us feel alive and authentic.”

Present at the conference were teacher Berenice Sánchez Caballero, Director of the Health Sciences Division; Dr. Guillermo Ramón Aguilar Peralta, head of Clínica Escuela; and Dr. Frida Sofía Zamudio León, responsible for the Institutional Health, Safety and Environment System (SISSMA).

Sincerely “Think and Work”
“2023, Year of promoting comprehensive training with a Network of Multi-thematic Centers and Systems”
Guzman City, municipality of Zapotlan el Grande, Jalisco, October 10,

Text and photographs: Aurora Sastre Quijas

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