Psychological health is receiving more attention today than ever before—from the WHO to insurance companies. Psychiatrist Markus Treichler shows how health is not a state or condition, but rather a capacity and describes how this capacity can be strengthened.
Psychological health is coming to the fore. Its value and importance are increasingly being discussed today—by individuals, the medical community, and the media, health care institutions, the WHO, and society at large. This is a new development. Thirty years ago, in 1996, the foreword to the Großen Handbuch der seelischen Gesundheit [Comprehensive handbook of mental health] stated, “Mental health remains a neglected issue in our society.”1 That is changing.
Our mental and psychological health is an essential factor for our well-being, bodily health, performance, resilience, and social acceptance, as well as for our ability to lead a personally fulfilling and meaningful life. It is therefore not astonishing that the WHO, as well as national health organizations—in Germany, the RKI (Robert Koch Institute),2 and statutory health insurance providers—are conducting studies and projects to scientifically investigate psychological health and make it measurable. At the same time, efforts are being made to improve psychological health through specialized services. For example, in 2025 the WHO recommended that by 2030 an additional 150 million people worldwide be given access to psychological and psychotherapeutic services.3
October 10, 2026, marks another “World Mental Health Day,” as proclaimed by the WHO—an occasion to highlight the importance of mental health for a healthy, fulfilling life and well-being. But what is mental or psychological health? How do we experience it, and how can we strengthen it? The WHO’s definition of “psychological well-being” falls short of capturing its true significance.
Two Sides of Health
Health is not merely a scientific concept; rather, health always a includes a subjective dimension and personal experience: a personal assessment and living experience of how our corporeal organs are functioning, of our individual abilities of soul and spirit—even of our own moods—as well as the way in which all of this manifests itself over the course of our life and how an understanding of this can be applied to cope with life’s challenges.
Health is a holistic concept that refers to the whole human being. But just as we distinguish between bodily and psychological illnesses, we can also distinguish between bodily and psychological health. After all, a person can be physically ill but psychologically healthy, and vice versa. We also make a clear distinction between different measures where physical or psychological health is concerned. For example, there are certain preventive measures for maintaining bodily health: nutrition, diet, hygiene, exercise, a regular routine, opportunities for rest, occupational safety measures, noise protection, and so on.
There are similar principles for mental health as well. For example, mindfulness and self-care, good communication and nurturing interpersonal relationships, conflict prevention or resolution, stress prevention or management, a balanced alternation between activity and rest, and sufficient sleep and exercise. Some of these measures actually apply equally to both bodily and mental health, meaning they affect the whole person.
Health Risks
As the Heidelberg philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer said, “Health always stands within a broader horizon of permanent jeopardy and potential disturbance.”4
Within this context of disturbance and threat, however, there is also support and encouragement, and it is within such a context of polar disruptive/supportive and harmful/healing influences that people seek their health. Health is neither something that can be engineered nor manufactured. Achieving health means cultivating it through an individual and largely unconscious process and supporting it with various measures in order to maintain or regain it.
The horizon of disturbances and threats to our health today is different from what it was fifty years ago. New health risks have emerged, particularly in recent years and decades. Contributing factors include societal changes, climate change, wars, displacement, and crises—but above all, the experiences during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Added to this are digitalization, social media, and developments in AI, including fake images and the misuse of personal data.5 These factors do not give rise to new clinical conditions; rather, it is familiar psychological conditions such as anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and addiction which are exacerbated as a result of these new risks. It is crucial to be aware of these risks and threats and to take action against them. The experiences from the pandemic and with social media, in particular, show us what is essential for mental health: interaction, relationships, conversation, and trust. Restrictions and obstacles to these qualities lead to significant disruptions and strains on mental health and development. The threat to mental health thereby becomes a health risk factor in its own right.
History shows us that every era has its own concept of illness—and likewise, every person has their own concept of health.
This is how Steiner put it in 1909 when he said that “there are as many kinds of health as there are people.”6 Health is individual, as is the experience of happiness. This applies both to its purpose and to how it is achieved or maintained. “Health is certainly not a universal measure”7. This statement holds true today in modern scientific discourse on the concepts of health and illness. Rather than a state or condition, health appears to be a capacity: the capacity to deal constructively with the circumstances, events, experiences, disruptions, and threats of life and to lead one’s own life to be shaped in a meaningful way.
Being healthy is therefore something highly individual, and over the course of our lives, each person will continually develop, acquire, endanger, lose, and regain their personal state of health. A great opportunity for personal health therefore lies not in avoiding illness, but rather in knowing what is good for you, knowing what you want to live for, and knowing what you want to use your health for—and then living your life in accordance with these three insights. The question, then, is, “How can a person find within themselves a standard for their own health?”8 That’s how Steiner put it.
The Picture of the Human Being and Health
In the first few days of January 1920, Steiner gave three public lectures on anthroposophy in Basel. For the middle lecture on January 6, he chose the unexpected topic: “The Foundation of Physical and Mental Health in Spiritual Science.”9 Right at the beginning of the lecture, he made it clear that “if one is to speak of the foundations of health in the context of spiritual-scientific anthroposophy, then the spiritual and psychological factors involved are to be given special attention.” 10 As a starting point, he describes “one of the oldest and, at the same time, one might say, most controversial questions of a human worldview: the question of the connection between the soul and spiritual aspects of the human being and the bodily aspects in general.”11
Here, we have the body and soul (or mind-body) problem—which remains unresolved in the sciences to this day. Steiner addresses it by describing a differentiated organization of the physical-bodily and the spiritual-soul realms, structured into three interconnected spheres, his threefolding [lit. “three-membering”] of the human being: the nerve-sense system, the rhythmic system of respiration and circulation, and the metabolic-locomotion system. Respectively, these three systems form the bodily foundations for the soul activities of thinking in waking consciousness, feeling in the dream-like subconscious, and willing in the sleeping unconscious.
Steiner emphasized the importance of a holistic view of the human being, which must be methodically implemented when it comes to a medical-therapeutic perspective and practice. In his time, however, a holistic view of the human being was not common in natural scientific medicine. Steiner criticized this openly: “Spiritual science cannot help seeing that the methods the natural sciences have applied so beneficially over the last three or four centuries to many areas of life can never be salutary and good for people suffering from an illness.”12
Bodily Health
In the first half of the 20th century the Strasbourg surgeon René Leriche (1879–1955) offered a beautiful description of bodily health: “Health is life lived in the silence of the organs.”13 This idea can also be traced back to the great French encyclopedist Denis Diderot, who wrote as early as 1751: “When we are well, we are unconscious of any part of our body; and if any part draws attention to itself by pain, we are certainly not well.”14
These two phenomenological descriptions of health are easy for anyone to understand. They proceed entirely from personal experience and are much easier to grasp than the WHO’s definition: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”15
Psychological Health
If a life marked by the silence of the organs signifies bodily health, this statement certainly does not apply to psychological health. Rather, mental health, as we understand it, is a life characterized by the conscious experience and self-directed exercise of the soul’s faculties.16
Psychological health is the result of an active and integrative process of engaging with the world and experiencing oneself in the course of life, through the individual shaping and living out of one’s life. Obstacles, disruptions, and threats are also a natural part of one’s life story, along with inspiration, help, and support. A healthy life is not a life without illness; rather, it is a life characterized by the ability to overcome the obstacles, disruptions, and risks encountered in life, to fill one’s life with meaning, and to know one’s own values and goals and live in accordance with them. Well-being is a capacity of the human being that is initially innate, can then be enhanced or weakened by a wide variety of experiences, continues to mature through personal assessments and the resolution of life situations, and can ultimately manifest itself as a fulfilling life.
Health and illness are inseparable in this context, not in the sense of opposites, but in the sense of complementary, mutually reinforcing qualities of the manifestations of human life.17
Mental Health as a Risk Factor
In crisis situations, mental health comes especially into risk. This is true, for example, when you’re not feeling your best emotionally, when you’re experiencing grief or worries, going through a relationship crisis, or are facing potential conflicts at work. A depressed mood, difficult decisions, or fears about the future can also take a toll on psychological health. This can lead to psychological conditions, as well as bodily illnesses. Stress is not managed effectively in such situations, so stress-related illnesses arise—ranging from exhaustion and hypertension to coronary heart disease and burnout. The immune system is weakened, infections occur more frequently, and the course of any bodily illness is adversely affected. In this way, threats to and disturbances of mental health affect the whole person as risk factors for health, performance, quality of life, sense of purpose, and life expectancy.
Mental Health as a Resilience Factor
When mental is considered under ordinary circumstances rather than the exceptional conditions of crisis, we orient and lead our lives toward value and meaning, and tend to view conflicts, crises, interpersonal problems, and work-related stress as challenges that we can handle again and again, and with increasing skill. Mental health is then revealed as a factor of developing resilience in our lives. As a result, our sense of well-being and self-confidence grow; our health is strengthened, our performance improves, and we experience a positive sense of purpose in life. Psychological health is an essential source of a successful, fulfilling life. Mental health and mental illness are not a contradiction; they are not mutually exclusive, but rather complement each other, opening up new opportunities for growth.
Strengthen Mental Health, Improve Quality of Life
Interactions, relationships, conversation, and trust are the fundamental qualities without which mental health cannot exist—indeed, it is bound to wither away—as we have seen, for example, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, but also in the aftermath of social media, particularly among young people. In addition, there are several specific qualities that can help nurture and strengthen mental health.
The three qualities that enable strong psychological health are the conscious cultivation of the soul’s three fundamental faculties: thinking, feeling, and willing. Furthermore, the posture or disposition of the soul with which we approach life is crucial. On the one hand, this requires an unbiased, open-minded posture toward the world; on the other hand, it requires positive self-confidence as a counterbalance so that we do not lose ourselves in the world. The third quality is a life oriented toward meaning; this entails feeling supported by a trust in the meaningfulness of destiny and the world. Thereby, we gain the ability to maintain and strengthen our psychological health and, if it has been lost, to regain it. In this way, soul health becomes life force; mental health becomes strength for life.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Footnotes
- Frederic I. Kass, John M. Oldham, and Herbert Pardes, eds., Das grosse Handbuch der seelischen Gesundheit: Früherkennung und Hilfe bei sämtlichen psychischen Störungen [The big handbook of mental health: Early detection and help for all psychological disorders], German ed. edited by Hans-Ulrich Wittchen (Beltz Quadriga, 1996); first published as The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Complete Home Guide to Mental Health (Henry Holt, 1992).
- Robert Koch Institute, “Psychische Gesundheit und psychische Störungen” [Mental health and mental disorders], last modified June 17, 2026; Robert Koch Institute, Ergebnisse der Jahreserhebung des Panels Gesundheit in Deutschland (RKI-Panel 2024): Psychisches Wohlbefinden (ab 18 Jahre) [Results of the Annual Survey of Health in Germany Panel (RKI Panel 2024): Mental well-being (age 18 and older)], fact sheet, December 5, 2025; Prognos AG, “Mentale Gesundheit: Risikofaktoren und Folgen psychischer Erkrankungen” [Mental health: Risk factors and consequences of mental illness], project commissioned by the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia, last modified March 27, 2025; Robert Koch Institute, “Mental Health,” July 2, 2019.
- Cf. Gerry Katramados, “A New Narrative and Its Shadow,” Das Goetheanum: English Edition 1–2 (2026); first published in German, Das Goetheanum, no. 49 (2025); United Nations General Assembly, “Political Declaration of the Fourth High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases and the Promotion of Mental Health and Well-Being,” draft resolution submitted by the president of the General Assembly, A/80/L.34, December 8, 2025.
- Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Enigma of Health: The Art of Healing in a Scientific Age, trans. Jason Gaiger and Nicholas Walker (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 111; first published in German, 1993.
- Infocenter der R+V Versicherung, “Die Ängste der Deutschen 2025” [Germans’ greatest fears 2025], 34th installment of the longitudinal study, representative survey of 2,400 respondents, September 18, 2025; cf. Oliver Pieper, “German Fears: Rising Cost of Living Tops List of Concerns,” Deutsche Welle, September 18, 2025.
- Rudolf Steiner, Quellen der Gesundheit: Drei Vorträge [Sources of health: Three lectures], ed. Andreas Neider (Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 2003), 35; from “Gesundheitsfragen im Lichte der Geisteswissenschaft” [“Health Issues in the Light of the Spiritual Science] in Wo und wie findet man den Geist? [Where and how does one find the spirit], GA 57 (Dornach: Verlag der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, 1961), Berlin, Jan. 14, 1909
- Volker Becker, “Der heutige Krankheitsbegriff” [The contemporary concept of disease], in Krankheitsbegriff, Krankheitsforschung, Krankheitswesen [The concept of disease, disease research, and the health-care system], ed. Volker Becker and Heinrich Schipperges (Springer, 1995), 4.
- See footnote 5, p. 51 (same lecture).
- Rudolf Steiner, “The Foundation of Physical and Mental Health in Spiritual Science,” in Social Issues: Meditative Thinking and the Threefold Social Order, trans. Joe Reuter, rev. and ed. Sabine H. Seiler (Anthroposophic Press, 1994), pp. 41–62, Basel, Jan. 6, 1920 (GA 334).
- Ibid., 41 (translation here from the original German).
- Ibid., 41–42 (translation here from the original German).
- Ibid., 60.
- René Leriche, “De la santé à la maladie” [From health to disease], in Encyclopédie française [French encyclopedia], vol. 6, L’être humain [The Human Being] (Comité de l’Encyclopédie française, 1936), 6′06–6; quoted in Georges Canguilhem, “Health: Popular Concept and Philosophical Question,” in Writings on Medicine, trans. Stefanos Geroulanos and Todd Meyers (Fordham University Press, 2012), 43, first published as Canguilhem, “La santé: concept vulgaire et question philosophique” [Health: Popular concept and philosophical question], Cahiers du séminaire de philosophie [Philosophy seminar notebooks], no. 8 (1988): 119–33.
- Denis Diderot, “Letter on the Deaf and Dumb,” in Diderot’s Early Philosophical Works (Open Court Publishing Company, 1916), 185–86; first published in French, 1751.
- World Health Organization, “Constitution of the World Health Organization,” preamble, adopted July 22, 1946, in Basic Documents, 48th ed. (World Health Organization, 2014), 1.
- On the faculties of the soul, see Markus Treichler and Johannes Reiner, Anthroposophie-basierte Psychotherapie: Grundlagen—Methoden—Indikationen—Praxis [Anthroposophy-based psychotherapy: Foundations—methods—indications—practice] (Salumed Verlag, 2019), 33–39.
- See Markus Treichler, “Leibliche und seelische Gesundheit” [Physical and mental health], in Die Seele war von Anfang an dabei: Der umfassende Grundgedanke der Anthroposophischen Medizin—Eine Bestandsaufnahme nach hundert Jahren [The soul was there from the beginning: The comprehensive foundational idea of anthroposophic medicine—An assessment after one hundred years], ed. Markus Treichler (Info3 Verlag, 2020), 45–63.
