Mental Well-Being (PDF)

Corey Keyes is a professor of Sociology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a member of a MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development, and co-chair (with Ed Diener, Don Clifton, and Martin Seligman) of the first summit of Positive Psychology in 1999. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, where he is a core member of the multidisciplinary project on the "Pursuit of Happiness" 5-year project funded by the Templeton Foundation. He participated in the 2007 National Academies of Science Keck Future's Initiative on The Future of Human Healthspan: Demography, Evolution, Medicine and Bioengineering. His research centers on illuminating the "two continua" model of population health and illness, showing how the absence of mental illness does not translate into the presence of mental health, and revealing that the biological and psychosocial causes of true health are often distinct processes from those now understood as the causes of (or risk for) illness. This work is being applied to better understanding resilience, prevention of mental illness, and informs the growing healthcare approach called "predictive healthcare," which seeks to map and monitor true (physical and mental) health and to develop and apply novel responses to correct early deviations to it to maintain health and limit disease and illness. Corey is currently working on these issues with governmental agencies in England, Canada, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and with the World Health Organization (WHO) Europe, and with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the USA

From the reviews:“This book frames positive mental health in terms of subjective well-being, not just the absence of psychiatric illness or symptoms. … Numerous figures and tables help clarify the research data. Because the book is written from an international perspective with research studies from various part of the world, readers can see both universal factors and cultural differences underlying mental well-being. It is important to discover the factors which underlie mental health and this book makes a valuable contribution to this effort.” (Gary B. Kaniuk, Doody's Book Reviews, March, 2013)