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In this part of the presentation I will discuss mental health and illness and also look at
a number of mental health problems which people experience.

Mental Health is about the way we cope with the different

things that are happening in our lives and how things can
affect our emotions.

Mental health is about being effective, efficient, content, maintaining an intelligence

and a happy disposition.

In the other extreme, there is mental illness, when you are not capable of

Between them, there is a continuum, that is represented in the picture. There are
various degrees of mental health and illness and our position on it can change as time
passes (Hart 2004). Significant life events, such as moving home and divorce can all
lead us to the bad extreme. But these feelings they are time limited or in response to
specific events. But mental illness can be said to occur where the response to a
stressor is prolonged, or is triggered by inappropriate events, or where the persons
quality of life is impeded.

Mental illness is an umbrella term, as it covers a range of disorders, such as

depression, anxiety, bipolar mood disorders, schizophrenia and eating disorders.

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A country, a state, a city are parts of a territory. However, territory is not only a
geographical area, it is primarily made up of the people who inhabit it. Based on this
notion of territory that is organized the network of care for people suffering from
mental disorders.

The Centers for Psychosocial Care (CAPS) assumes the strategic role in the
articulation of these networks, in direct assistance and regulation of the health
services network, working together with the Health Unit Family Residences
therapeutic, general hospitals and other CAPS.

Hospitalization services in a psychiatric hospital, psychiatric hospitalization in a

general hospital, emergency services and, more recently, the Psychosocial Care
Centers III cover the crisis, symptom remission with medical and nursing care

Follow-up services, outpatient clinics and psychosocial care centers (II, I), as well as
mental health care centers offer treatment continuity, providing therapy, care and
psychosocial rehabilitation.

The primary level comprises in general the basic health units and the family health
program.