The Importance
of Relationships
for Mental Health.
Rita Pierson spoke on the TED Stage about the importance of forming relationships with students. She is right because mental health is built on relationships. Pick any diagnosis and it basically describes how healthy or not one person’s relationships are with others.
Major Depressive Disorder is basically when a person has difficulty having the confidence, self-worth, and/or energy to interact with other people.
Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is basically when a young person has difficulty relating to authority figures and following through with social responsibilities.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is basically when a person has difficulty sitting and/or focusing long enough to follow through on social responsibilities.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is basically when a person is so hurt by an experience they had that they have difficulty interacting with other people and/or following through with social responsibilities.
While this list is an oversimplified description of mental health, it shows that mental health diagnoses are based on relationships and, thus, our healthy mental functioning is based on our relationships.
Our Needs
Rita Pierson mentions the importance of providing as a society for our children’s needs. This reference is actually based on a foundational psychological principle known as Maslow’s hierarchy of need. The idea of the hierarchy is that people need to have their basic needs (food, housing, etc.) provided for before they can make significant growth relationally and intellectually. This is why schools have food programs to help hungry students take care of their basic needs in hopes that it will improve their academic skills.
Caring for Others Reduces Mental Health Crises
Rita Pierson’s battle cry is for us to help other people. Yes, it is easy to think that we as a society need to help our children; however, it is more challenging to believe that we need to help our homeless or convicts. But Maslow’s principle transfers to everywhere in society: when we develop relationships with other people to provide for their needs, those people’s mental health, academic health, and all around self-esteem and self-actualization improve.
Conclusion
Forming positive relationships is the key to good mental health. If we can work on meeting our basic needs and helping others meet their basic needs, we will can improve our society, our education system, and the world. If you would like to hear more from Rita Pierson, check out these items.
