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June 24-25, 2019 | Philadelphia, USA
Mental Health 2019
Journal of Mental Health and Aging | Volume 3
Page 30
PSYCHIATRY DISORDERS, MENTAL
HEALTH ANDWELLNESS
World Summit on
OF EXCELLENCE
IN INTERNATIONAL
MEETINGS
alliedacademies.comYEARS
UBUNTU: A MODEL OF POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH
DerekWilson
Prairie View A&M University, USA
T
he examination of mental health in accordance to laws of social relations provides an important background
for examining mental health. While the scholarship within sociological perspective offers little insight into
mental wellness the need to develop a significant construct from which to assess the trajectory of mental
health within the context of culture is warranted. While theories in sociological research discuss the direct
implications of sociocultural connections to a people’s way of functioning stronger connections are in order
for defining their mental health implication, grounded in a specific cultural reality, is required in conceptual-
izing positive mental health from a cultural sociological perspective. This discussion focuses on the relevance
for developing positive mental health model that reflect on the interest and image of the culture which the
individual represents; including the cultural traditions and practices that are unique to their particular way of
being. This model of positive mental health to be presented is known as Ubuntu: Connectedness, competence,
and consciousness. Author as an African philosophical ethos is the fundamental interdependence or orienta-
tion describing human beingness in accordance to one’s relationship with others. For example the Akan people
value the responsibility to others as the supreme moral principle/episteme. While he helps to define the func-
tion of humaneness, it also espouses a system of principles or central themes of connectedness, competency
and consciousness. It is proposed that the term connectedness be used as a fundamental principle or theme of
mental health for all individuals. Connectedness as a concept refers to an individual’s attitude and need to form
social bonds; it serves as a psychological construct of belonging. Competency is a general repertoire of skills
required for effective human functioning. Social competence is the relationship skills, flexibility and the ability
to navigate between primary culture and dominant culture (cultural competence). Consciousness– the state of
awareness of internal and external activities– at its basic level features the interplay between perception and
conception. Perceptual consciousness is the process of attaining awareness or understanding as experienced
through the senses; revealing of one’s conscious understanding.
J Ment Health Aging 2019, Volume 3