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Show Know Your Schools . . . . An Action Program For Mental Health .... Rowan C. Stutz During this week most of you have attended a meeting P-TA, American Legion, Kiwanis, etc. in your community in which the program consisted of a discussion of mental health problems in our homes, schools and communities. I'm sure each of us was impressed that our homes, schools and communities com-munities could all be better places plac-es for children to grow to be the kind of happy, successful people we want them to be. Many of us when we first heard the term mental health thought first of mental illness. But mental health is far more than merely the absence of mental illness. Mental health is something all of us want for ourselves, whether we know it by name or not. When we speak of happiness, or peace of mind, or enjoyment, or satisfaction, satis-faction, we are usually talking about mental health. Mental health has to do with everybody's everyday life. It means the overall way that people peo-ple get along in their families, at school, on the job, at play with their associates, in their communities. commun-ities. It has to do with the way that each person harmonizes his desires, ambition, abilities, ideals, feelings and his conscience in order or-der to meet the demands of life as he has to face it. It has to do With: 1. How you feel about yourself. 2. How you feel about other people. 3. How you are able to meet the demands of life. There is no line that neatly divides the mentally healthy from the unhealthy. There are many different degrees of mental health. No one characteristic by itself can be taken as evidence of good mental health, nor lack of of any one as evidence of mental illness. And nobody has all the traits of good mental health all the time. One way of describing mental health is to describe mentally healthy people. Just knowing what mental health is doesn't mean you can go out and be mentally healthy, but knowing can help you to think straight about it. I'm sure a question each of us asked ourselves and perhaps others oth-ers after our meetings this week was, "So what? What can we do about it?" Well thank goodness there is something we can do. The science of human behavior has much to teach us about ourselves our-selves and others. Through study and earnest endeavor each of us can become a better parent, a better teacher, a better neighbor. Some groups have suggested that we organize ourselves into study groups to study and discuss mental men-tal health materials. Others suggest sug-gest that we hold a county-wide family life institute to investigate and discuss those things that will help our home be a better place for the rearing of children. I believe that this week's series of meetings has left many people in Duchesne County feeling that mental health is a problem they're going to unite their efforts to solve this coming year.. |