Promoting health and preventing illness: promoting mental health in community nursing practice.

Ask a group of your colleagues what they see as necessary for good health. From our experience the answers will include ways to: ensure a healthy diet, promote sufficient exercise, and achieve good sleep patterns, for example. Notice something? They all relate to physical health. There is no denying their importance for good mental health also, but the focus will almost certainly be on the body rather than the mind. The privileging of physical over mental health has become so entrenched that for many the term 'health' automatically means 'physical health'…
PMID: 22551278