ASPECTS OF MENTAL-HEALTH

Using the data of the Mannheim Cohort project, an epidemiological fiel d study in the industrial, business and university town of Mannheim (F RG), the authors retrospectively analyze those 72 subjects who ranked highest with respect to mental and psychic health. As a main result th ey find that stress factors in early childhood are conspicuously less marked among the healthy even in comparison to so-called risk persons who tend to fall ill with psychogenic disorders. Strikingly, the numbe r of unpleasant life events in the last three years does not distingui sh both groups. Extending Kernberg's classification of psychopathology the authors define two more levels of personality structure to assess a person's psychic functions. This rating of personality structure co rresponds well with the Goldberg-Cooper interview. It seems that there is a subgroup among psychologically healthy people that can be distin guished from the rest based on their good defense mechanisms.