https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2505120122
Psychology is the common name for any knowledge of the mind.
Every day we are bathed in psychological promotion.
One question that is not often asked in a meaningful manner is does psychological knowledge contribute to better mental health?
I think that is a question that everyone is afraid of.
Think of all the people, perhaps you, perhaps your friends who studied psychology in college, either as a major or a minor.
What were they or are they interested in?
Psychological Interest
I asked Goggle AI just this question, and it produced this answer:
Psychology is interested in the study of the mind and behavior, including mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motivations. It explores how biological, social, and environmental factors influence how people think, act, and feel.
This answer doesnt seem to answer my question, and actually suggests that psychology is not concerned with mental health, so I moved to Chat GPT and asked
Is psychology interested in mental health? and if so, what is the relationship between them?
As AI likes to do, it gave me more info than I needed or wanted, at that, an answer filled with assumptions and reiterations of information that mainly avoid any sort of thoughtful address for the question, Nonetheless, the short answer, its synopsis was:
Psychology provides the scientific framework and therapeutic tools to understand, assess, treat, and promote mental health.
Without psychology, we would lack a systematic way to explore what mental health is, what can go wrong, and how to intervene effectively.
I’d say this answer is fair, but not really satisfying.
An Noticeable Problem
Id say that the first paragraph is adequate if we don’t want to think too much about it, and maybe that is for a different post.
AI is saying that psychology is a systematic way to explore what mental health is, what can go wrong, and how to intervene effectively.
Its sounds really good, and if I was a high schooler who was wanting a career in psychology, Id take that as a good advertisement for what I wanted to do in life. Kind of like the US Army advert of a decade or so ago:
Be All That You Can Be !
But I am still not sure psychology is really concerned with mental health. At least for the AI answer, psychology is about having a system of understanding.
Nothing wrong with that, but if I was really concerned with mental health, it makes me wonder if my mental health is healthy because I have a system for it?
Awareness, Ignorance and Denial
One of the thing I advocate for a true mental health is awareness.
While I wouldn’t actually work with my client to suggest while they encounter the experiences that come through practices that raise awareness of one’s Self that they actually are in denial, in effect, ignorance, or not knowing, is very similar in my mind to denial. Although denial has more of an intentional notion behind it, as though I am actively and purposefully not looking or considering something.
This is interesting. Psychology is pretty much automatically and assumptively promoted as having to do with mental health, and its approach is systemic, and I wonder if my mental health is systemic.
Do I have a system in place in my life and mental workings?
Perhaps I do. But I am not privy to it. I might have systems by which I am able to accomplish tasks in my life, but I think if I had a system through which I make friends, for example, I wonder how genuine and fulfilling such friendships would be.
It seems that any sort of system I would have for my mental health would be more akin to a sub-system than a true system.
Often we talk about the experience that is the functioning of a person. This kind of experience is not noticed because it is the functioning that is the person living their life. On one hand, it is their experience of things, on the other hand it is the person in the theoretical guise of what we call a subject.
The question becomes:
Is there a way for an external reckoning of an internal experience?
Here is where the continental shelf of the philosophical encounter with modern science is come upon.
This is because of the nature of the phenomenological system by which psychology functions:
It is unable to account for a total functioning epistemology.
…that is…
…without a particular kind of force.
How do you know you are mentally healthy?
Let us know !
https://lancek4.com/2025/08/01/does-psychology-work-for-better-mental-health