Across the depth-psychology corpus, 'Mental' functions as a contested border concept, marking the uncertain territory between somatic process, psychic structure, and spiritual principle. Its valences shift dramatically depending on disciplinary context. In Janet's tradition, as developed by van der Hart, Nijenhuis, and colleagues, 'mental' designates a quantitative economy — mental energy and mental efficiency — whose fluctuation determines the integrative capacity of personality and the vulnerability to dissociation. Here the term is almost hydraulic: mental level rises and falls, constraining or enabling adaptive action tendencies. Winnicott and Klein situate 'mental' within a developmental and nosological framework, distinguishing mental disorder as a category irreducible to brain disease, while insisting that psychic health depends on integration processes that have distinctly somatic preconditions. Bion's proto-mental system dissolves the boundary itself, proposing a matrix in which physical and mental remain undifferentiated — a pre-categorical substrate from which group emotions erupt. McGilchrist and Jaynes approach the term through neurological lateralization and the archaeology of consciousness, treating mental illness as a total world-alteration rather than a discrete malfunction. Aurobindo situates mind as a principle standing above matter and life yet below spirit, one stage in an ascending ontological hierarchy. The persistent tension is between 'mental' as a measurable functional parameter and 'mental' as an irreducible experiential domain that resists external inspection.
In the library
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The proto-mental system I visualize as one in which physical and psychological or mental are undifferentiated. It is a matrix from which spring the phenomena which at first appear—on a psychological level and in the light of psychological investigation—to be discrete feelings only loosely associated with one another.
Bion proposes the proto-mental system as the foundational level at which the mental/physical distinction has not yet emerged, making it the generative matrix of all subsequent group emotional life.
Bion, W.R., Experiences in Groups and Other Papers, 1959thesis
the term mental level indicates the ability to efficiently focus and use whatever mental energy is available in the moment. Mental efficiency includes the concept of integrative capacity. Thus being able to reach a high mental level is fundamental to one's capacity to integrate experiences.
Van der Hart operationalizes 'mental' as a measurable economy of energy and efficiency, making mental level the primary determinant of integrative capacity in trauma survivors.
Hart, Onno van der, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentthesis
There is an intimate and reciprocal relationship between mental efficiency and level of action tendencies (Janet, 1928b, 1934). To comprehend this relationship, it is important to refine our definition of mental efficiency.
Drawing directly on Janet, van der Hart establishes the reciprocal relationship between mental efficiency and hierarchical action tendencies as the structural core of his theory of dissociation and recovery.
Hart, Onno van der, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentthesis
Janet understood 'common stigmata' to be related to a lowering of the mental level; these symptoms included lapses of all the mental functions, the lack of feeling and of will (abulia), and the inability to begin and end activities.
Nijenhuis reconstructs Janet's taxonomy of mental stigmata, centering the concept of reduced mental level as the explanatory mechanism linking hysteria, dissociation, and functional collapse.
Nijenhuis, Ellert, Somatoform Dissociation: Phenomena, Measurement, and Theoretical Issues, 2004thesis
it is impossible to understand mental illness from 'outside', as if inspecting a machine that has a malfunctioning part. An ill person must be understood from within, as embodying a whole new way of being in the world.
McGilchrist, citing Minkowski, argues that mental illness constitutes a total transformation of world-relatedness that renders third-person mechanistic inspection categorically inadequate.
McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis
the principle of improving mental efficiency involves patients learning to master increasingly complex mental and behavioral actions that support adaptive living, including the ability to prioritize and adjust their goals when needed.
Van der Hart frames the therapeutic project as systematic improvement of mental efficiency through graduated mastery of increasingly complex action sequences.
Hart, Onno van der, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
The phobia of trauma-derived mental actions is a generalized form of the specific phobias of traumatic memories and dissociative parts.
Van der Hart identifies the phobia of mental actions as a generalized pathological avoidance structure that underlies and sustains dissociative fragmentation across personality parts.
Hart, Onno van der, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
Many ANPs inhibit their mental contents at least to some degree. They are numb, depersonalized, and avoidant of conflicted, painful, or very pleasurable feelings and sensations.
Van der Hart characterizes the apparently normal part's inhibition of mental contents as a core phobic defense that sustains structural dissociation and prevents integrative processing.
Hart, Onno van der, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
A classification starts, then, with these three categories: (a) Diseases of the brain with consequent mental disorder. (b) Diseases of the body affecting mental attitudes. (c) Mental disorders proper, that is, disorders that are not dependent on brain or other physical disease.
Winnicott constructs a tripartite nosological schema that carves out a domain of properly mental disorders irreducible to organic brain pathology, grounding a distinctly psychological psychiatry.
Winnicott, Donald, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, 1965supporting
The mental level is lower in general than in the high functioning group. Axis II issues, especially borderline and avoidant personality disorders, are common, along with other serious comorbid conditions.
Van der Hart correlates depressed mental level with increased personality disorder comorbidity and treatment-resistance, confirming mental level as a clinical prognostic variable.
Hart, Onno van der, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
working well with others implies a multitude of mental and behavioral actions: cooperation, reflection, mentalization, analysis of problems, and integration of social and work skills.
Van der Hart demonstrates that complex adaptive social functioning requires coordinated sequences of mental and behavioral actions whose disruption is a core feature of dissociative pathology.
Hart, Onno van der, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
comfort should have a goal of raising the patient's mental level and ability to engage in more adaptive behaviors.
Van der Hart instrumentalizes therapeutic comfort by subordinating it to the functional goal of elevating the patient's mental level as a precondition for adaptive change.
Hart, Onno van der, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
The reverse process is that of disintegration, and this is a word used to describe a type of mental illness: dis-integrati
Winnicott links mental illness to the failure of integration as a developmental achievement, positioning psychopathology as the reversal of normal maturational consolidation.
Winnicott, Donald, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, 1965supporting
Above matter and life stands the principle of mind, nea
Aurobindo situates the mental principle ontologically above matter and vital life, establishing mind as a transitional plane in an ascending spiritual hierarchy rather than a terminal achievement.
Aurobindo, Sri, The Synthesis of Yoga, 1948supporting
Mental illness, 192, 204, 211. See also Insanity, Madness, Psychosis
Hillman's index cross-references mental illness with insanity, madness, and psychosis, signaling the archetypal-psychological refusal to segregate these categories from broader mythological and imaginal experience.
Hillman, James, The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology, 1972aside
both interval and one-time nature exposure had positive effects on adults with diagnosed mental illness, while only interval nature exposure showed positive effects on adults with symptoms of mental illness.
Bettmann's meta-analysis differentiates the dose-dependent effects of nature exposure on diagnosed mental illness versus symptomatic populations, introducing an ecological therapeutic variable largely absent from classical depth-psychological discourse.
Bettmann, Joanna Ellen, A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Effect of Nature Exposure Dose on Adults with Mental Illness, 2025aside
Paranoia: The construction, from false premises, of a logically developed and in its various parts logically connected, unshakable delusional system without any demonstrable disturbance affecting any of the other mental functions.
Bleuler's differential diagnostic definition of paranoia hinges on the selective preservation of mental functions, implying that 'mental' names a plurality of semi-independent capacities rather than a unitary faculty.
Bleuler, Eugen, Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias, 1911aside