It can be hard to keep your focus on a goal that you can’t clearly define. If you’re investing time and money into improving your mental health through therapy, for example, how do you know where you want to arrive at, or that you’re making progress? What should you be measuring? And what am I measuring, as your therapist? Some people seem to think that mental health means being happy all the time, never feeling sad, always getting what you want, etc. Mental health is not the erasure of all things unpleasant. We need the unpleasant, the painful, the unexpectedly tragic events of life to help us truly appreciate the full spectrum of our life experiences. So then what is mental health, if it doesn’t mean we have a permanent smile on our faces? Nancy McWilliams PhD, a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology, and well-known author in the field of psychoanalysis, has created a comprehensive list of 16 characteristics of mental health which I find very helpful in answering this que...