The mind is our control over and experience of our cognitive faculties of thinking, feeling, memory, perception, consciousness, judgment, and language. Philosophy has been working on the nature of the mind since the time of philosopher Rene Descartes who published his work 'Meditations' in 1641. He thought that there was physical stuff and mental stuff, two types of substances: one being extended in physical space the other in some mental space. Descartes was the first real skeptic who reduced his philosophical questioning by doubting everything and working up from there and is famous for his cogito, 'I think, I exist.'
Skipping most of the history of the philosophy of mind, I will move straight to the theory of the mind by Jaegwon Kim to solve the problem that descartes posed. A summary of his theory is in a Text by Brian Cooney, 'The Place of Mind' 2000.
Basically, the Kim's Supervenience theory suggests that mental phenomena are dependent, in an asymmetrical way, on the physical elements in the brain that support them.
mental properties are "realized" or "implemented" by...physical properties, through not identical with, or reducible to, or definable in term of them...The doctrine that mental properties are supervenient on physical properties seemed perfectly to meet the needs of the post-reductionist physicalist in search of a metaphysics of mind. (Kim 2000, TPoM 170)
The theory of supervenience simply explains the relationship between the brain and the mind. Kim defines supervenience as,
Set A of properties (strongly) supervenes on set B of properties just in case, necessarily, for any property F in A, if anything has F, there exists a property G in B such that the thing has G, and necessarily anything that has G has F. (Kim 2000, TPoM 171)
The relation of dependence, or determination, is asymmetric: if x depends on, or is determined by, y, it cannot be that y in turn depends on or is determined by x. (Kim 2000, TPoM 172)
Basically what Kim is saying is that our mental functions are dependent on specific parts of the brain or relations between parts of the brain to allow those functions of the brain to work. If someone suffers specific types of brain damage, we observe that their mental functions are inhibited.
Brain Plasticity
Our brain's have the ability to change depending on how we use them. The theory of neuroplasticity states that through training and practice our neurons strengthen connections or weaken connections. In 1949, Donald Hebb's findings from his book The Organization of Behaviour are summarized as 'neurons that fire together wire together,' meaning the more we do something, our brains neurologically reflect that behaviour.
We use our minds to determine actions and indirectly we change our brain states. We cannot 'will' or think our brains to change, only through repeated practice and exposure will our brains change neurology. However, we can decide, with our mind, to take a course of action that will lead to brain changes. We can use our minds to indirectly create brain changes within the domains of cognitive functions humans already have; we can become better at thinking, judging and remembering etc. More about this is discussed in the Learning and Training Tool.
Mental Health
If our minds are the set of faculties we think, feel, perceive etc. with and we have control over changing our abilities with these faculties, we also have control over becoming healthy within each of these domains. To understand mental health is also to understand how the mind and brain work, what influences them, and how we can control and change them.
Achilles Justice 17.2.18, 14.3.18, 27.3.20
Link to Kim in 'The Place of Mind.':
https://www.amazon.ca/Place-Mind-Brian-Cooney/dp/0534528252/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518898192&sr=8-1&keywords=9780534528256
ISBN: 978-0534528256
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