Mental Health Subjectivism is the philosophical view that mental health is primarily determined by an individual’s personal experience rather than by objective, universal standards.
In simple terms:
A person is mentally healthy if they feel psychologically well or experience themselves as functioning well, regardless of external judgments.
Core Idea
Mental health is defined by subjective inner experience, such as:
- Sense of meaning
- Emotional satisfaction
- Personal coherence
- Self-acceptance
- Felt well-being
This contrasts with approaches that define mental health through:
- Functional impairment
- Social norms
- Biological markers
Philosophical Roots
Mental health subjectivism draws from:
- Phenomenology
- Existential psychology
- Humanistic psychology
These traditions emphasize the first-person perspective over external classification.
Example
Two people meet criteria for depression:
- Person A feels deeply distressed and hopeless.
- Person B reports feeling at peace with their slowed pace of life and does not feel impaired.
A strict medical model may diagnose both.
A subjectivist approach would argue that Person B may not be “mentally ill” if their lived experience is not one of suffering.
Strengths
✔ Respects individual differences
✔ Avoids over-pathologizing
✔ Centers personal meaning
✔ Reduces stigma
Criticisms
✖ Risk of ignoring serious impairment
✖ Hard to standardize for treatment
✖ May conflict with public safety concerns
✖ Difficult in cases of poor insight (e.g., severe mania or psychosis)
In Clinical Psychology
In practice, most modern clinicians integrate both:
For example, even if someone feels powerful during mania, clinicians may intervene if the condition threatens safety.
- Subjective distress
- Objective dysfunction
- Risk assessment
- For example, even if someone feels powerful during mania, clinicians may intervene if the condition threatens safety.
Shervan K Shahhian
LIBERTY PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 