• Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I still don't see why you seem to support the idea of 'cognitive hygiene'. What about the concept impresses you so greatly? You emphasise the importance of eliminating negative thinking, and I do believe in a positive mindset. Nevertheless, most therapy approaches do not see 'emotional health' as being merely a matter of eliminating the negative, and are a bit deeper. For example, in the cognitive-behavioral model, the emphasis is upon understanding assumptions which impact on individual emotions. This involves challenging faulty judgements and errors in thinking, rather than simply the 'negative'.

    This may involve looking at certain negative assumptions, but more with a view to looking at the erroneous rather than simply the negative. For example, if someone was in a relationship this may involve questioning fears that the partner may leave. It would not be necessarily saying that the relationship will not end because it might do. To simply try to eliminate negative possibilities alone doesn't always work because in some ways people can't just try to rule out negative things happening. So, what I am arguing is that interventions may need to go deeper than simply trying to eliminate negativity alone.
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    I see. Care to share your personal experience? What does it look like?TheMadFool
    A bunch of high IQ individuals who couldn't function without a person next to them.
  • TheQuestion
    76
    I imagine the difference between emotional health vs. mental health is about the same difference between belief systems and systems of belief or between terminology and nomenclature.

    It might partly how the words are used in various writing by different authors or it might be how one conceptuses an abstract image when they read the two different words.

    In a nutshell, they can mean different things to those who write and read them, but they can also mean the same thing to a person if they wish for them to mean the same thing.
    dclements

    So don't you think Mental Health is mostly align to lets say biology and emotional illness lets. Lets say "schizophrenia"

    Emotional issues is more event based like trauma compared to a soldier with "PTSD"

    one has a chemical and neurological disorder that created an emotional symptom.

    The other is struggling with an experience/knowledge based emotional reaction. I witness something horrible and the information I am processing is causing a negative emotional reaction.
  • Michael Zwingli
    416
    Emotions are not feelings, emotions are felt...Varde
    ???
    "Affect", "emotion", and "feeling" are all directly synonymous, in the sense of "a person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data".
  • Michael Zwingli
    416
    I know there are a couple of physicists on here. Out of curiosity, are there any psychologists of psychiatrists?
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Yes, I was horrified at the notion of cognitive hygiene, even when links were given. It seems like cleaning out the negative as if it is 'dirt'. I hope that is not the way forward for management in the mental health professions.Jack Cummins

    :up: Righteous anger! :chin: If everything has a reason (the principle of sufficient reason), then so-called negative emotions, our dark side in general, have a purpose.

    That said, as I recall vaguely, a case can be made that "unwholesome" feelings are now obsolete - our more advanced intellect recognizes this but the...er...reptilian brain seems to be unaware of this fact and persists in imposing itself on us at, well, inappropriate times.

    How the vermiform appendix is no longer required and is only a potential source of sickness and death, bad emotions too are simply vestigial remnants of a more savage past.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k

    What is the difference between Emotional Health vs. Mental Health?TheQuestion
    (Loosely and "arbitrarily" defined-described)
    "Emotional health" means having mainly positive emotions and control over them.
    "Mental health" includes "emotional health" plus: having control over thoughts, being rational and able to solve problems, and acting towards a better survival for yourself and the others.

    how do you differentiate the two when practicing cognitive hygiene?TheQuestion
    They don't have to be differentiated. They are both necessary for "cognitive hygiene" (however one defines this term). Simply because they help each other and can harm each other.
  • Tom Storm
    8.4k
    So don't you think Mental Health is mostly align to lets say biology and emotional illness lets. Lets say "schizophrenia"

    Emotional issues is more event based like trauma compared to a soldier with "PTSD"

    one has a chemical and neurological disorder that created an emotional symptom.

    The other is struggling with an experience/knowledge based emotional reaction. I witness something horrible and the information I am processing is causing a negative emotional reaction.
    TheQuestion

    This is confused. Emotional regulation and affect more generally are key indicators of mental health. Many mental illnesses - depression, schizo-affective disorder, hypomania, dysthymia, bi-polar, personality disorders and episodes of suicidal ideation - are all understood through their emotional impact. People's emotional regulation are a key indicator of their mental health. Emotional states are core predictors of psychological health and resilience. The two go together like peaches and cream.
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