This article presents a bibliographic review of research on the concepts of well-being and satisfaction for an investigation on Rethoric and family mental health. Initially, there is a short account of the advent of the concepts of health and normality in the clinic tradition and modernity. Then, the article shows current research in which the plurality of conceptions and present measures of well-being are recognized. In these research studies, the universal and fixed certainties that impose unique definitions, such as reducing the concept of well-being to economic or material indicators, are questioned. Finally, the need to do cultural and rhetoric studies that recognize the complex and plural character of the topic, when situating it in local and epochal social contexts, is justified. K