Psychological Well-Being: Panacea for Social-Cohesion and Peace Building

Psychologically health individuals form the bedrock and foundation for any society. Psychological well-being is conceptualized as amalgamation of positive affective state such as happiness and functioning with optimal strength and effectiveness in individual and social life. It is the combination of feeling good and functioning effectively. Psychological distress is an obvious risk and predictive factor for conflict and violation of societal values. Individuals who experience psychological ill-health are exposed to crime, violence and individualism. In addition, persons experiencing psychological disorder may be grossly selfish, callous, irresponsible, and impulsive and sometimes they are unable to feel guilty or learn from events and encounters. The modern society is experiencing decline of psychologically health individuals despite the public campaign efforts by World Health Organization (W.H.O) and various governments. The stigma, social exclusion and discrimination that occurs around people with psychological distress compound the situation. Mental health illness is highly prevalent through the world and are major contribution to wars, conflicts and poor socio-economic growth. This paper will evaluate various forms of psychological well-being that can enable an individual to improve social cohesion and peace. The main trajectory of this article is that by neglecting various forms of mental health, advocates of peaceful co-existence will fail to understand one of the primary root causes of poor social cohesion and conflict. The paper is informed by methodology of close reading, exploratory survey as well as content analysis. This review showed that improving and enhancing individual’s psychological well-being can play a significant role in achieving social cohesion and establishing sustainable peace.