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Adding my thoughts a little late but my thoughts about a definition for mental health is that it would/should be something flexible/evolving... and that with respect to the q. Sophie raised above that shaping one's "mental health" should also be on-going/evolving. One goal, though, might be to enable individuals to maximize their own personal agency which several people have also seemed to say. Also, I think "mental health" could/should be dependent on/defined by a number of variables... including the individual, but also culture. I feel strongly about each individual defining what mental health is for them, but I'm hesitant to leave out cultural/societal influences based on the "evidence" that for example... people who've recovered from a major depression/suicide attempts acknowledge that they feel differently now and acknowledge that that their thoughts and perceptions that death was the best choice for them were "not theirs". Finally, I'd like to through in self-awareness in the definition of mental health, along the lines of "the unexamined life is not worth living".