Enhancing Mental Health

Course Overview

Enhance your mental health and learn about the mind-body connection and how it impacts your wellbeing.

Mental health includes your emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how you think, feel and behave.

Enhancing Mental Health short course explores mental health in a personal, community and workplace context.

This 50-hour course introduces you to various concepts and applications that enhance your mental health: schema, perspective, possibility, the inner critic, the inner witness, locus of control, the creation power of language, self-agency, self-care and boundaries.

Explore the negative impact of chronic stress and learn how to manage stress better in both your personal life and the workplace.

Learn about community mental health, stigma, risk factors and how to promote mental health.

Finally, build the skills to promote mental health in the workplace. This includes optimising physical and psychosocial demands and resources within the workplace as well as wellness programmes, work redesign and person-environment fit.

Is this course for you?

This course is for you if you want to gain a better understanding of mental health and its various drivers.

What is mental health?

Mental health is multi-dimensional and includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel and behave. Mental health impacts how we feel about ourselves, how we relate to others and how we make healthy choices in response to life’s challenges and opportunities.

Dates and Registration

• Class of 2023: September – December
• Class of 2024 January – March
• Class of 2024 April – June
• Class of 2024 July – September
• Class of 2024 October – December

Short course classes are on demand allowing you to register at any time and move through course content at a time that suits you. Learners will have access to the course for the class period they choose when registering.

Certification

Upon completion, you will receive a digital certificate of completion as evidence of the skills and knowledge demonstrated.

The Enhancing Mental Health short course has been designed and developed by experts in the field of psychology. The course is for anyone needing to upskill in this area and offers 50 hours of learning.

What You’ll Need

• Access to Microsoft Word
• Google Chrome (recommended)
• Stable internet connection

What You’ll Learn

Through videos, readings and discussions, you will explore the following topics:

• What is Mental Health?
  • What is mental health and its determinants. Explore the concept of “normal” and how this relates to mental disorders. Discover mental health as a state of ‘flourishing’ rather than just an ‘absence of mental illness’. This session introduces you to the PERMA model from positive psychology. Therapeutic models for treating mental illness will be introduced.
• Lenses on Life
  • Learn about various concepts and applications that enhance mental health. Explore schema, perspective, possibility, the inner critic, the inner witness, locus of control, the creation power of language, self-agency, self-care and boundaries.
• A Holistic Perspective on Mental Health
  • Explore the mind-body connection and its impact on our mental health. Learn about the negative impact of chronic stress and techniques to manage stress better. We will explore an approach called The Three Principles that views the innocent misuse of thought as a common underlying cause within mental health challenges.
• Community Mental Health
  • Discover what community mental health is and how can you promote it. Gain a better understanding of the relationship between community and mental health. Explore perspectives from indigenous psychology, particularly an African perspective on selfhood and mental illness.
• Mental Health in the Workplace
  • Learn about mental health in the workplace and different ways to promote it. This includes optimising physical and psychosocial demands and resources within the workplace. Wellness programmes have many benefits for promoting mental health, as does work redesign and person-environment fit. Explore various theories and models about stress management in the workplace. Learn about the characteristics of a corporate psychopath. Finally, addresses bullying and sexual harassment in the workplace.

Course Outcomes

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Describe mental health within its multi-layered complexity.
• Apply a range of concepts to enhance your own mental health and that of others.
• Mitigate the negative impact of chronic stress on your mental health.
• Describe community mental health and how to promote it.
• Promote mental health in the workplace.

The Team

Our short course developers are expert practitioners. They have been specifically selected for the breadth and depth of experience they possess in their respective disciplines. The team loves sharing their knowledge and online learning expertise to ensure that you get the most out of your learning journey.