Four pillars of mental health

Quite a bit of research and years of clinical experience have suggested a number of patterns in our behaviour that are crucial to our own happiness and the welfare of our family members. Fortunately, each of these can be improved with awareness and practice.

First is psychological flexibility. This is our ability, under new or challenging situations, to be adaptable, thoughtful and sometimes experimental, rather than reacting in the ways we always have. This involves not jumping to conclusions, not being judgmental, and not letting our emotions overly guide our actions. Psychological flexibility is also an attitude: Staying calm and having confidence in our ability to solve a problem once we understand the problem and all our options.

For example, confronting a scary or confusing situation (one of our kids comes out as transgender), we try to wrap our minds around this reality with curiosity and confidence that we can work through things together – rather than with fear or judgment. I try to shift into curiosity and listening and away from my initial opinions many times in my therapy work.

Another flexibility strategy is to see if we can use approaches that are the opposite of our strongest traits. For example, if I am a person who always fixes things and makes suggestions, this time I might hold back at first and see what develops from the others involved. And another part of psychological flexibility is keeping in mind our most important values while tackling a problem. For example, do I want to be right or to be loved?

Second is the power of warmth—acceptance, approval, and giving security. Only one long-term study has been done of childhood factors leading to the ultimate well-being of kids as they grow into adults. In the 1960s a psychologist in St Louis studied 400 families – including divorced and together, strict vs lenient parenting, birth order, and on and on.

Then he waited 40 years and re-assessed the children from 80 per cent of these families. He found that only one factor in childhood predicted emotional health and happiness among the children as they grew up, and that was whether they had experienced warmth in their homes as children. And it was a strong predictor.

Third is the importance of playing offence rather than defence in life. People who “play offence” are proactive. They take chances and calculated risks, try for what they want, and choose to go forward. People who “play defence” play it safe and try to keep anything bad from happening. They try to be too prepared, too certain. Significant research shows that playing offence results in more happiness and satisfaction, as well as better mental health and relationships. In my career I have often noticed that people rarely regret major things they have done or tried – but they often regret what they did not do.

Fourth is the importance of talking out our decisions, feelings and fears with someone else. Talking through problems with another person allows us to understand our issues, identify our options, clarify our feelings and values, and feel good about ourselves far better than just thinking about these things in our own heads.

The other person does not have to be a therapist, minister, or expert. It is not about them or their advice – it is something very important about our process of putting things together, sharing everything outwardly, and hearing ourselves do so. Of course, by sharing we often get ideas, reassurance, acceptance, and validation – these are valuable but come in addition to the benefit of doing the sharing itself.

These four behaviour patterns – psychological flexibility, expressing warmth, playing offence and talking out situations – have proven benefits for our mental health and the quality of our relationships. The more conscious of these we are, and the more we practice them, the more we will see results and the happier, more resilient, and more confident we will be.