mental health concept

What we often refer to as mental health is essentially not "a lifetime of no anxiety, no sadness, always positive", but a state of dynamic balance - you can accept your current emotions, cope with the regular pressures in life, and exert your abilities normally. Whether you are working, studying or getting along with others, you will not be dragged down by inexplicable internal friction. This is currently the most common definition of mental health in the global academic community, and it is also the core anchor for all clinical interventions and popular science propaganda.

I have been doing psychological services in the community for almost 6 years, and I have encountered too many misunderstandings about this concept. Not long ago, an aunt brought her son who had just finished the college entrance examination to come for consultation and said, "This child lies in bed every day and doesn't talk. Is there something psychologically wrong?" After careful questioning, I found out that the child had been preparing for the exam for three years under high pressure. After the exam, he just wanted to sleep in bed. After a week of relaxation, he still invited friends to go hiking and eat hot pot. He lived a more relaxed life than anyone else. On the contrary, I have seen many professionals who are "emotionally stable and always positive" in the eyes of outsiders. They complained to me privately that they struggled to hold on every day. One second they were joking with colleagues, and the next second they entered the elevator and burst into tears. Even they didn't know why they were sad.

It's interesting to say that psychological practitioners from different schools actually have their own emphasis on determining mental health. Psychoanalytically oriented counselors pay more attention to the reconciliation of inner conflicts. Old-school scholars even directly summarize mental health as "being able to love and work" - you will not be repeatedly dragged away by old childhood wounds, and you will not subconsciously avoid something when you clearly want something. I am so anxious that I have to leave my job. The root cause can be traced back to the fact that as a child, as long as I got the first place in the exam, my parents would raise higher demands. Subconsciously, I have bound "excellence" and "withstanding unbearable pressure" together. This kind of internal tension has not been smoothed out. Even if everything seems to be going well on the surface, it is not stable.

Practitioners with a behaviorist orientation don't dwell on these invisible subconscious things, and value more practical social functions. If you say you have social anxiety, it doesn't matter. As long as you can go to work normally, buy groceries, and communicate with others when necessary, even if your palms get sweaty even if you say a few words to someone in private, it's not a problem at all. Intervention is only necessary when the fear is so intense that you dare not even leave the house or even accept takeaways, and are completely unable to maintain a normal life. The judgment standards of the two groups seem to be far apart, but in fact the core logic is common: mental health never requires you to "have no negative emotions", but that your emotions will not affect you from living the life you want to live.

Many people always think that mental health is a black and white thing, either "sick" or "not sick", but this is not the case at all. It is more like a scale that can slide left and right. The far left end is a serious mental illness that requires clinical intervention, and the far right end is a completely relaxed and self-consistent high-energy state. Most of us ordinary people are swinging back and forth in the middle range. An Internet operator I interviewed a while ago is a typical example. His annual physical examination reports are all excellent, and there are no major traumas. He just collapses on the sofa and cries every day when he gets home from get off work. He checks his mobile phone until 3 a.m., and he can’t control it even though he has a morning meeting the next day. He went to the Jingwei Center to take a scale and did not meet the diagnostic criteria for depression. It is a typical "sub-health" state - the balance has not been completely broken, but it has already slipped to the left. As long as you adjust your work and rest in time and take a vacation to relax, you can easily get back to a comfortable range.

The academic community’s definition of mental health has been constantly updated in recent years, and the latest consensus specifically places an emphasis on “self-acceptance.” It doesn’t mean that you have to become a well-rounded person who is liked by everyone. You are just introverted and don’t like team building. There is no need to force yourself to toast and say nice words at the wine table. Find a job that does not require too much social interaction. You can go home from get off work and feel comfortable playing with your cat and reading a book. This is a healthy state. A little girl came to me for consultation before and said that she felt mentally unhealthy because her best friend broke up with her just a week later. She still couldn't help but cry three months after the breakup. I laughed after hearing this. Everyone's emotional rhythm is different. As long as you don't delay your normal work and meals, it's okay to be sad. You have to force yourself to "come out" quickly, otherwise you really can't live with yourself.

To put it bluntly, there is no unified standard answer to mental health, and there is no need to blindly score yourself based on online scales. You feel that your life is comfortable, you have things you want to do, and people you can miss, even if you occasionally break down once or twice when something bad happens, and wash your face after crying, that's enough. After all, life is for you to live, not for any standard, right?