Social theory has much to gain from taking up the challenges of conceptualizing ‘mental health’. Such an approach to the stunting of human mental life in conditions of adversity requires us to open up the black box of ‘environment’, and to develop a vitalist biosocial science, informed by and in conversation with the life sciences and the neurosciences. In this paper we draw on both classical and contemporary social theory to begin this task. We explore human inhabitation – how humans inhabit their ‘ecological niches’ – and examine a number of conceptual developments that ‘deconstruct’ the binary distinction between organism and environment. We argue that we must understand the neurological, ecological and social pathways and mechanisms that shape human (mental) life if we are to address the central concerns of our discipline with inequity and injustice as these are inscribed into the bodies and souls of human beings.

社会理论可以从应对“心理健康”概念化的挑战中受益匪浅。这种在逆境条件下阻碍人类精神生活发育的方法要求我们打开“环境”的黑盒子，并发展以生命科学和神经科学为基础并与之对话的生命主义生物社会科学。在本文中，我们将借鉴古典和当代社会理论来开始这一任务。我们探讨了人类的栖息地-人类如何居住在其“生态位”中-并研究了许多概念上的发展，从而“解构”了生物与环境之间的二元区别。我们认为我们必须了解神经系统疾病，