A Preliminary Working Hypothesis for a Comparative Study of Mental Health

Abstract

In this chapter we attempt to delineate the principles underlying comparative research on mental health in relation to adjustment of migrants in contradistinction to investigations of other authors concerning the relation between mental illness and migration. Such comparative research presupposes the possibility of comparing “shades” or “gradations” of mental health with other variables. The question is raised whether it is permissible to talk of quantitative differences in the case of a concept as intricate as that of mental health. In my opinion, we are permitted to distinguish between very good or “positive” mental health and rather good mental health on the one hand, and degrees of unsatisfactory mental health, that is, gradations of mental ill health on the other. The principle of this research project is to avoid as far as possible comparing too complicated and insufficiently defined psychiatric, psychological or sociological entities in their relations with other variables. As in a former piece of research, I have sought an intrinsic factor, this time of mental health, suitable to this end. Such an intrinsic factor is the free or unfree, undisturbed or disturbed, interpersonal and intrapersonal relations, inter- and intrapersonal relations being interlinked.