Editor's note

In recent years, self-harm incidents of children and adolescents have frequently appeared in the media, and the trend of younger age of depression has become more and more obvious.

The survey shows that in 2020, the detection rate of depression among adolescents in my country is nearly one quarter.

How to protect children's mental health has become a very urgent social issue.

Although a series of related policies and methods have been implemented, the inadequate and unbalanced educational resources, and the lack of awareness among schools and parents still make this "road of protection" difficult.

A few days ago, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Management of Student Mental Health" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"). It has made very specific recommendations from the establishment of mental health courses in universities, middle schools and primary schools to the early warning and intervention of students’ psychological crises. The “double reduction” policy, which has recently caused continuous heated discussion, directly focuses on reducing the burden of schoolwork and focusing on the healthy growth of students’ physical and mental health.

Students have frequent psychological problems, and school psychology courses are absent

　　Before the summer vacation, two seats were vacated in a certain class of the second grade of a middle school in Haidian District, Beijing. The two students left the class group one after another. One was temporarily suspended due to "extreme weariness", and the other was shown by the parents to the school. Quietly dropped out of school after the diagnosis of "schizophrenia".

In a class of only 30 students, the "disappearance" of the two classmates caused a lot of fluctuations. Everyone was talking quietly, and they hadn't noticed any difference before, and the latter classmate was still an outstanding student.

However, after a brief surprise and sorrow, everything returned to peace with the arrival of the summer vacation.

Now the senior year of high school starts ahead of schedule, the class schedule is more full than before, and the evening self-study has been extended. The students have no time to talk about others, and the countdown to the college entrance examination has entered.

　　This is a short section of "campus secrets" that a high school student silently (a pseudonym) told reporters, and his class is not special, and two of the classes next door are also suspended.

Such a situation may still be regarded by some as a "special case."

　　In March of this year, the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences released the "Report on the Development of Chinese People's Mental Health (2019-2020)".

According to the report, in 2020, the detection rate of adolescent depression in my country is 24.6%, of which the detection rate of severe depression is 7.4%.

The analysis shows that with the growth of grades, the detection rate of depression has shown an upward trend: the detection rate of depression in elementary school is about 10%, the detection rate of depression in junior high school is about 30%, and the detection rate of depression in high school is close to 4%. become.

　　"It is particularly important to note that about 3%, 8% and 12% of students in elementary, middle and high schools each have severe depression, and severe depression is closely related to self-harm and suicide." Party Secretary of the Department of Psychology, Beijing Normal University Qiao Zhihong, director of the Student Psychological Counseling and Service Center, added that, for students, anxiety is a more common problem than depression, plus other types of mental and psychological problems such as bipolar disorder, attention deficit, and learning disabilities. Health issues, the prevalence of various mental illnesses in our student population far exceeds the average prevalence of our entire population.

　　So, when a student feels an obvious psychological dilemma, who should he turn to for help?

　　"Stop school and go home." Silently and straightforwardly answered the question.

Although his high school is equipped with a psychological counselor, this teacher only gave a lecture for the whole grade at the beginning of school and never showed up again.

The weekly psychology class on the class schedule is actually given by the politics teacher, and it is also about the political textbooks, "those to be tested."

The students don’t even know where the psychology teacher’s office is.

　　It is a common phenomenon that psychological teachers do not have a high sense of existence in school and students do not trust them.

"The importance of mental health education at all levels and types of schools varies greatly. Many schools have not set up corresponding positions, or used part-time personnel with no professional ability to make up the number, which makes it impossible for limited talents to engage in this professional position. I can't help but say it is a huge regret." Qiao Zhihong said.

　　In several elementary schools randomly interviewed, reporters have experienced this difference.

There are four elementary school children, either they have never heard of psychology class, or they just watch cartoons in psychology class.

The other two key elementary schools with "good conditions" not only have psychology classes and textbooks specially designed and developed for children, including identifying and coping with negative emotions, making friends and maintaining friendships, resolving conflicts and coping with bullying, etc. Content, there is also a counseling room equipped with psychological sandboxes and dolls, so that psychological teachers can provide counseling to children with deviations in emotions and behaviors.

　　"Now the problem of'entry with illness' is getting more and more serious. Psychological crises have appeared in colleges, middle schools and primary schools. I think this deserves the attention of the whole society." said Zhang Chi, deputy director of the Beijing Jiaotong University Psychological Quality Education Center and a science expert at the Chinese Mental Health Association. "For students, the mental health class should be the'first classroom' and'propaganda position' after enrollment, which helps students deal with mental health problems correctly, enhance students' awareness of seeking help, and eliminate stigma."

　　From the "Notice", the goal and purpose of mental health education is to improve the psychological quality of all students, prevent and intervene in psychological crises, and lay the foundation for the healthy growth of students, whether it is a college or a primary and secondary school.

Although the importance of this work has been discussed again and again, we have to be more patient and expect this work to become the focus of more schools.

Home-school linkage, walk into the inner world of children

　　One weekend in the summer vacation, at 8 pm, Nana in the second grade of elementary school was still taking a video class.

On the wall in front of her, there are certificates of "First Prize in English Reading Contest" and "Able to Calculate", and a series of learning tasks such as "KET words every day, memorizing Tang poems, 2 pages of oral calculation" and so on.

Nana's weekly schedule is full, and she needs to learn logical thinking, tennis, flute, piano and many other hobbies.

　　"The acceptance rate of ordinary high schools in our district is only 70%, can you not study?" She was still in the second grade of elementary school, and her mother was already worried about whether Nana would be admitted to high school.

The recently implemented "double reduction" policy does not seem to relieve her anxiety.

It started to rain in Beijing at 9 o'clock that night, and Nana asked to take a walk in the yard, but her mother refused on the grounds that she was "easy to catch a cold".

　　“Students who are the only child as the main body often have multiple hopes from their families and society, which also constitutes the background of the times for students’ mental health work.” said Li Jiyong, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Minzu University of China.

　　"At present, parents’ anxiety is easily transferred to their children. Academic problems lead to the main problem. The anxiety and pressure of the whole society are transmitted to the children. Students have less physical exercise, poor frustration tolerance, and poor self-management ability. "Parents stare here", there will be a problem of "passive continuity" when they arrive at university." Zhang Chi believes that behind the psychological crisis of students, there are often lack of family education and "hidden dangers" brought by the family life stage, so on the one hand, crisis management Family cooperation is needed, and on the other hand, parents should be taught how to prevent them in ordinary times. You can’t "call parents only when things happen."

　　"In fact, there are certain reasons behind the children who show psychological and behavioral deviations." Xiao Jiang, born in the 1990s, has been a primary school head teacher for 5 years. She has observed that many children in lower grades start playing video games very early and playing with their peers. , Interaction is reduced, and parents who are too busy and negligent to accompany them are often behind them.

She talked about an introverted and sensitive little boy in the class. In order to get his mother to accompany him to dinner, she pretended not to eat in the nursery class. As a result, he vomited after eating two meals.

Xiao Jiang, who knows the truth, is very worried. “The school attaches great importance to children’s mental health and personality characteristics, and also calls on parents to provide children with higher-quality company. Only when home and school communicate and cooperate with each other in time, and give children enough love and attention together, can they get there. In the heart of the children, help them to smooth out all kinds of emotions in time."

Professional training to improve teachers’ mental health education literacy

　　"In the casual conversation, another'collapse' was resolved." Li Hong (pseudonym), a counselor from the School of Life Sciences of a well-known university in East China, told reporters that she happened to encounter a student who was in a bad mood. Begin to cry and pour out the huge pressure in my heart: The student is about to undergo a minor operation, and the recovery period will be longer, and I am worried that it will affect the progress of the experiment and the progress of the paper.

Li Hong euphemistically suggested that students temporarily put aside the experiment during the recovery period, while taking a break, first consider the analysis and processing of data and the direction of job hunting after graduation.

After the students talked, they realized that all their time would not be wasted, and their emotions calmed down.

　　Li Jiyong believes that as higher education enters the stage of popularization, universities have increasingly become the final stage of the formation of the three views of young students and the "last bridge" to society.

Li Hong also said: "In the upper grades of university, academic, employment, family, and emotional problems may occur. If all factors are added up at once, it may form the'last straw that crushes the camel'. It's extreme."

　　Zhang Chi, who often does individual counseling for students, found that as the number of postgraduates in colleges and universities grows, the proportion of postgraduates' psychological problems is also increasing, most of which focus on academic problems and mentor relationship problems.

"One is to understand, and the other is to understand." He further explained that there are three different characteristics with three students. Some students may have been depressed or have a psychological crisis. If they do not understand the students, they may be in the process of guidance. Will expose the problem.

For example, the tutor management method is more "autocratic", which may be no problem for some students, but some students will experience psychological crisis.

　　Zhang Chi once came into contact with a student who couldn't go to the tutor's office, couldn't meet, or even listen to the tutor's name—he had a strong stress response.

He believes this also highlights the importance of mental health training for mentors.

　　The "Notice" proposes that colleges and universities should conduct full-coverage training on basic knowledge and skills of mental health education for newly recruited counselors and graduate tutors.

Zhang Chi introduced to reporters the different emphasis of Beijing Jiaotong University in training these two groups:

　　When students encounter difficulties and worries, the counselors should deal with them at the first time. Therefore, the counselor training provides targeted crisis identification and in-depth counseling courses, conversation skills with students and parents, and how to protect students’ privacy. In addition to training, There is also a bi-weekly supervision to make it reach the “semi-professional” level; and for the tutors, they should learn more about the differences between themselves and their students, the current students’ psychological characteristics, personality characteristics, and how to communicate in teaching.

　　Li Hong introduced that in the past, there were some small skills in dealing with students, but after participating in mental health education training, and then encountering students' anxiety or more extreme situations, she will evaluate students' behavior from the perspective of psychology. The degree of risk, make a more reasonable judgment and response.

However, in the face of the school’s 1:400 ratio of counselors and students, and the huge number of students’ needs for psychological counseling and decompression, she often feels that she has “more than enough energy but not enough energy”.

　　“The school’s mental health education professional team needs a special academic education program to train. For this reason, some normal colleges have opened a mental health education undergraduate program and a clinical and counseling psychology master program to train such talents. However, due to the mental health of our country The development of academic disciplines is not perfect. At present, the capacity and scale of the two disciplines of mental health education and clinical counseling psychology are not enough to cope with the huge social needs." Qiao Zhihong believes that we need to rapidly expand the scale of academic education for psychological work professionals. Cultivate enough professionals who are competent for mental health education in schools at all levels; and optimize the management system of schools at all levels to make mental health education more professional and truly help students.

(Our reporter Zhou Shixiang Tang Yige)