The implications of Paulo Freire's critical aesthetics for individual mental health.

This article seeks to explore Paulo Freire's concept of critical aesthetics and to further interpret its implications for promoting individual mental health. In Paulo Freire's conception of critical aesthetics, mental health should not be understood as mere adaptation to existing social realities. Rather, it signifies the restoration of the human being as a speaking, imagining, hoping, and meaning-making subject. From this perspective, mental health refers to the individual's reconstitution as an autonomous and agentic subject-one who not only regains a sense of selfhood, but also embraces life with hope and engages in purposeful, transformative praxis within the world.