Abstract

This paper presents preliminary results from an exploratory study of the literacies community college students from northern Ontario employ in the management of their mental health. Results from the study suggest that metacognitive processes are key determinants of mental health and that these processes are significantly influenced by social factors which are primarily locally informed. The findings further suggest that individuals rely on metacognitive heuristics to protect and promote their mental health. The construct of “cultured resonance” emerges from the data as being intrinsic to the formation of metacognitive heuristics and their ongoing adaptation. Cultured resonance involves the assimilation of information based on its intelligibility and valuation. The findings also suggest that when individuals find themselves traversing psycho-emotional terrain beyond the delimitations of a trusted metacognitive heuristic they are vulnerable to “inverted synergies”. Inverted synergies comprise vortices of thought and emotion that become increasingly distorted and intense until a means of regaining cognitive-emotional terra-firma is intuited, remembered or externally introduced. The constructs of cultured resonance and inverted synergy suggest that adaptation is the default objective of intrapsychic operations and of mind/body grammars. Cultured resonance and inverted synergy warrant further investigation as possible etiological pathways to mental health and mental health complication.