Recent reporting by PsyPost highlights a new consensus study in Nature Mental Health that attempts something the field has long lacked: a shared definition of what good mental health actually looks like.

Using a structured, multi-round expert survey known as the Delphi method, researchers consulted 122 senior academics from 26 countries across 11 disciplines, from clinical psychology and psychiatry to public health, nursing and philosophy. Nineteen dimensions cleared the panel’s 75 percent agreement threshold. Six drew agreement above 90 percent: meaning and purpose, life satisfaction, self-acceptance, connection with others, autonomy and happiness. Others included belonging, calmness, optimism, competence, vitality and a sense of safety.

Two points give the work particular weight. First, the panel affirmed that positive mental health is not merely the absence of illness; a person can experience it, and actively grow it, while still living with a diagnosed condition. As lead author Matthew Iasiello put it, positive mental health is “more than feeling happy and more than simply not being unwell.” Second, the researchers are candid that their panel was heavily Western and English-speaking, and that concepts rooted in spiritual connection or communal harmony may not yet sit neatly within the framework.

That candour is an invitation. At the Maccabeus Foundation, the six highest-rated dimensions read like a description of the work itself: meaning and purpose, self-acceptance, connection, and the freedom to choose one’s own direction. Our faith-rooted, evidence-informed approach begins precisely there – with the renewing of the mind. A shared language for measuring flourishing can only strengthen the case for care that treats people as whole.

Read the original article on PsyPost to learn more.