The most important goal of nursing care is to promote the subjective experience of health. The health promoting efforts of mental health care nurses must be aimed at creating encounters where the patient will be confirmed both existentially and as an individual worthy of dignity. The patient in mental health care is often viewed by the nurse as nothing more than a passive recipient of care and the belief in the patient's potential is minimal. This can lead to a situation where the patient loses control in the caring situation and feels unable to improve his/her health, which conflicts with the goal of the nursing care. The aim of the study was to describe patients' conceptions of how health processes are promoted in mental health nursing. Twelve patients with experience of mental health nursing were interviewed, and the data material was analysed using a phenomenographic approach. The results show 13 different conceptions of the phenomenon, and these were summarized into four descriptive categories: interaction, attention, development and dignity. The conceptions described show that the patients need to be treated as equals and that the nurse must trust the patient's ability to make decisions and to promote his/her health process. It is suggested that mental health nursing should be built on humanistic science and its view that every individual has the ability to grow and develop. This view is one of the most important preconditions for the promotion of health processes in mental health nursing.