Rethinking mental health: a European WHO perspective

Abstract

In spite of recent clinical and research advances, an increased burden of mortality and morbidity related to stress and mental ill health can be noted, especially in European societies and populations undergoing stressful transitions and dramatic changes. A societal syndrome, consisting of depression, suicide, abuse, risk-taking and violent behaviour as well as vascular morbidity and mortality, can be observed, reflecting individual psychopathology related to disturbances of the serotonin metabolism as one of the oldest, most basic cerebral instruments of mankind to survive, to socialize, to cope with stress and danger. In a time where mental health professionals look for new and challenging identities, they have a tendency to abdicate from social psychiatric and public health activities in favour of more prestigious positions in brain research, genetics or advanced psychotherapy. A redefinition, reconceptualization and renaissance of social psychiatry seems timely and necessary, responding to the burden, advances and possibilities related to mental health we find today. It should proceed from the reductionism which often has characterized earlier psychosocial and social psychiatric approaches, utilize modern knowledge about neuroplasticity, psychoimmunology, neuropsychology and neurophilosophy, reflect the interaction between environment and structure, nature and nurture, and integrate different areas of knowledge in a holistic public mental health approach. Political decisions and societal solutions can be more or less in line with basic human preconditions. Consequences of failure to respect this already can be seen. A new awareness and responsibility-taking with regard to basic human ethological, physiological, psychological and existential conditions is needed and has to be concretized in innovative public mental health approaches.