Abstract
• Mental health must be viewed as a complete state, including well-being and psychopathology indicators.
Highlights
According to the positive psychology background, the focus on constructive dimensions of individual functioning implies a critical change on the paradigm from the merely analysis focused on individual pathology to an approach focused on self-actualization and well-being (Seligman &Csikszentmihalyi, 2000)
Prior the analysis of the measurement model, a set of descriptive statistics was performed to understand the nature of the relationships between the indicators that will be included in the model
We found that the absence of significant psychological problems distinguishes young people in care (e.g., Complete mental health and Vulnerable groups revealed significant differences in some dimensions compared to Symptomatic but content and Troubled groups), as the possibility of individual selfrealization contributes to different profiles (e.g., Complete mental health and Symptomatic but content revealed significant differences in a large number of variables compared to Vulnerable and Troubled groups)
Summary
According to the positive psychology background, the focus on constructive dimensions of individual functioning implies a critical change on the paradigm from the merely analysis focused on individual pathology (and on the need to repair the damage) to an approach focused on self-actualization and well-being (Seligman &Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). All these models suggest that mental health must be viewed as a complete state, reflecting the integration of a positive (well-being) and a negative (psychopathology) dimension of adjustment, in two continuums but related factors (Wang et al, 2011; Westerhof et al, 2010). This conceptualization of mental health has been empirically tested and results supported the model with two separate dimensions (Keyes, 2005; Wilkinson & Walford, 1998). Different approaches of classification could be adopted, with the quartered classification theory suggesting that mental health status can be understood in four groups: 1) Complete mental health [average/high well-being and low psychopathology]; 2) Vulnerable [low well-being and low psychopathology]; 3)
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