Mental Health Literacy – What is it?
In every person’s life, there are triggering and stressful situations and moments. They can be related to school stress, bullying, conflicts among friends, or current prevailing measures (e.g. the COVID-19 pandemic). Many people sometimes feel stressed or uncomfortable, which is completely normal. However, each person deals with stress and other negative feelings in their own way. There are better ways to cope with stress, as well as less effective ways that can further amplify stress and negative emotions. Having good coping strategies to tackle stress and negative emotions as well as knowing how to promote mental health are important aspects of mental health literacy.
In line with Kutcher et al. (2016), mental health literacy includes:
- The ability to positively influence one's own mental health and to maintain good mental well-being.
- The ability to recognize stressors and negative emotions and the knowledge of effective strategies to reduce them.
- Awareness of support options for mental health problems and the knowledge of "first-aid" measures.
- Destigmatizing mental health problems.
