Source: World Wide Web
Psychological counseling classes at the University of Michigan begin with yoga.
Tian Qiu, Aoki, Xia Xue, special correspondent of this newspaper in the United States, Germany, and South Korea, xing Xiaojing, and Wang Jing, reporters of this newspaper
Recently, a domestic high school student suspected of committing suicide due to lovelessness triggered the discussion on the Internet about adolescent mental health counseling. In the disclosed information, the school and parents have limited understanding and intervention in the student, which eventually leads to tragedy. Adolescent depression and suicide are highly regarded in many countries, and many schools and governments are studying more advanced ways to detect the precursors of students' psychological abnormalities in advance.
UNITED STATES: A variety of psychotherapeutic activities are initiated
At U.S. colleges and universities, student mental health has always been a crucial issue. Generally speaking, college and university hospitals have mental health departments. In the case of the University of California, its 10 branches have 24-hour toll-free hotlines and online chat sites on their respective websites. In addition to the school's website, the school will also remind students of these channels of help from time to time through emails, leaflets, etc. The school will open several places every day that do not require an appointment, for students who need help temporarily or are in urgent condition. This kind of consultation is not only completely free, but also attaches great importance to protecting the privacy of students, and psychological counselors cannot mention this matter with anyone and institution without the authorization of the student himself, and even if he encounters students who have come to seek help on campus, he cannot show that he knows them.
In addition to the more serious problems such as depression and anxiety, exam anxiety, the death of a loved one, and lost love have special help and counseling programs. For example, for the psychological problem of "imposter syndrome" – that is, the person feels "unworthy" to have everything he has now, and his true self is not as good as others think – there are many seminars and counseling services in schools that are specific to this issue. For example, for students' insomnia and lack of exercise, the school will organize "sleep punch card" and "exercise punch card" activities from time to time.
Outside the school hospital, other departments of the school will also launch a series of activities to help students regulate their emotions and relieve stress from time to time, such as related lectures and interest groups (such as meditation, yoga, etc.). In the case of Stanford University, for example, the school will arrange a large-scale "pet therapy" interactive activity in the final quarter, and students can feel joy and happiness through "dog petting". These dogs are not pet dogs borrowed at random, but trained psychological counseling dogs.
After some major events, American colleges and universities will also have special help and support. For example, during the epidemic, many students have psychological problems, and many schools require all courses to indicate the contact information of the school psychological problems help department on the course outline.
Due to the importance attached to mental health, American colleges and universities often strictly require teachers and students to pay attention to and supervise the situation of those around them. At the beginning of each semester at the beginning of each semester, the school will train teachers and doctoral teaching assistants, including mental health supervision, if you find that the people around you are in a continuous low mood or behave abnormally, you must encourage the person to seek help or report to the relevant departments of the school, while strictly protecting the privacy of the person.
Because of the richness and variety of these activities, in the minds of most students, receiving psychotherapy is a very normal thing, even a part of life, which in no way means that they are special, nor does it mean that they must be "patients" with some serious disease. The vast majority of students believe that just like people's physical condition, people's mental state will also have ups and downs, and what people need to do is to do a good job of self-protection and get out of the low tide as soon as possible.
Europe: Teachers, Psychometrics and Technology
Europe is the birthplace of psychology, but European students also face mental health challenges. Data released by major institutions show that among the 5-16-year-old adolescent group, nearly 10%-20% of the people with psychological disabilities in European countries are accounted for. Aubreich, a teenager psychological counseling expert in Berlin, Germany, told the Global Times that the mental health counseling of professional students in Europe is mainly carried out through three aspects: psychological counseling teachers, psychological physical examinations and digital technology counseling.
First of all, many European countries have formulated guidelines for relevant mental health counseling, such as the British "Promoting the Emotional Health and Well-being of Adolescents and Children" system, which guides mental health teachers in primary and secondary schools in detail. Some larger schools usually have full-time counsellors, while smaller schools hire a co-ordinator, usually a psychotherapist.
What does counseling teach? Taking European primary schools as an example, tutors mainly guide students to understand mental health and understand the normal range of human emotions, such as happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, tension, etc. Students learn to face emotionally affecting events such as parental divorce, bullying, etc. Teachers also guide activities that contribute to mental health, such as finland,000 primary school students are required to sleep for 10 hours and eat regularly. European schools also attach great importance to the psychological enlightenment of upper school students to help lower school students. At the secondary school level, teachers mainly help students to properly assess their mental health, especially when they encounter problems such as love, sexual problems, school bullying, Internet addiction, and the future. Many schools also offer targeted extracurricular activities such as meditation, mindfulness training, yoga, and more. The university has a student counselling centre with dedicated counsellors.
Second, free psychological examinations can prevent the serious consequences of many psychological problems. For example, in Germany, from kindergarten onwards, children under the age of 16 have a psychological examination once a year. Currently, there are 20,000 psychotherapists in Germany and nearly 2,800 adolescent psychotherapists. Psychological physical examination by the insurance company to pay for the consultation and treatment costs, in addition to timely detection of problems, but also help parents to understand the child's psychological maturity, do not leave "adult psychological sequelae".
Digital technology counseling is an emerging psychological counseling method. Aubreich told reporters that there are many psychological counseling apps in Europe, most of which are set up by government agencies, specialized psychological institutions and technical departments. It will conduct some psychological tests and give suggestions to students, and then through big data analysis, give them to the education department as a reference.
At present, many European countries are also paying more and more attention to the role of "internet celebrities" in the promotion of mental health. Aubreich said European students now spend at least two or three hours a day on social media. To this end, some governments have played an exemplary role by working with Internet celebrities to produce videos that are acceptable to teenagers.
Korea and Japan: Focus on promoting youth suicide prevention
Japan Hokkaido University Student Student Room
Affected by factors such as school violence and academic pressure, the suicide rate of Korean teenagers has remained high. According to the Legislative Investigation Division of the South Korean Parliament, the largest cause of death among 10-19-year-old adolescents in South Korea is suicide, and the number of suicides per 100,000 adolescents is 4.9, much higher than the OECD average (3.4). Affected by the new crown epidemic, the suicide rate of students in South Korea last year hit the highest in 10 years.
In order to curb the frequent suicide of students, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea began to implement the work of full-time mental health teachers in schools in 2012. According to the relevant regulations, each school should have at least one professional psychology teacher. Professional mental health teachers are required to obtain a qualification certificate approved and granted by the Minister of Education. According to the statistics released by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea in 2020, the number of teachers in kindergarten, primary school, junior high school and high school is 496,500, and the number of professional consulting teachers is 2609, accounting for about 0.53% of the total number of teachers. However, with nearly 200,000 students receiving psychological counseling and treatment each year, there is a serious shortage of supply. To this end, the education departments of each province actively promote the arrangement of professional psychological counseling personnel in each school. It is understood that the counselor school dispatch project analyzed the results of psychological counseling last year, showing that 22.89% of the students received positive changes after receiving the counseling of the dispatch counselor, which played a great role in the psychological stability and recovery of adolescents who used the school counseling room.
Student suicide is also a major social problem that has long plagued Japan. According to statistics from Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, suicides among elementary and high school students in Japan have shown an upward trend in recent years – 289 in 2016 and 489 in 2020, a record high.
Japan has a "student talk room" from elementary school to university, and professionals provide psychological counseling to students. Psychological counselors must obtain the qualification certificate of "clinical psychologist", that is, a psychological professional who is based on clinical psychology to help, improve and prevent various mental illnesses and psychological disorders of the counselor. The "Student Talk Room" can help students with a variety of life or academic difficulties. The Global Times reporter learned that some Chinese students who had just arrived in Japan had been depressed because of their poor oral language and inability to communicate, and relaxed a lot after consultation in the "student talk room". Japanese students are accustomed to the "student talk room" and do not discriminate or be confused because they frequently visit the consultation. In fact, some schools' "student talk rooms" not only welcome students, but also parents, and then provide professional advice on how to educate their children and how to communicate with them.
Experts: We should actively pay attention to the pursuit of "happiness"
Tang Yonglong, a professor in the Department of Applied Psychology of Southwest University, said in an interview with the Global Times reporter a few days ago that some of the suicidal behaviors of adolescents have a brewing process, such as assigning and disposing of important things, or writing suicide notes, which are all signs before suicide. Like the recent incident in which Lin wished his mother "Happy Mother's Day", it may be a "farewell", and the mother did not understand at that time. Some suicides are sporadic impulsive behaviors, which are difficult to predict in advance, and difficult to prevent and intervene.
Tang Yonglong said that the concept of "happiness" often used in our current psychology is more derived from the West, and there are two corresponding words in English: "happiness" represents long-term, stable happiness; "will be" is to work hard for a goal, although the process is not necessarily happy, but it can feel "meaningful". From the perspective of the needs of Maslow's five major classes, now that the bottom material of adolescents has been basically satisfied, when they pursue spiritual level satisfaction, they may lack goals due to lack of rich experience and stable selection (evaluation) standards. Tang Yonglong said that whether it is a school or a family in China, the evaluation standard for teenagers is very single, that is, "achievements". "But there is only one first place, there will always be someone who has to be the last", if you take "fighting for the first" as "will be", it is easy to have a sense of loss, resulting in a huge state of pain and depression. The lack of a more explicit "will be" that is more compatible with children may have an important link with self-harm and suicide among teenagers today.
Tang Yonglong said that Chinese parents are not reluctant to pay attention to their children's mental health, but it is difficult to participate in the current education system. For example, middle and high school students arrive at school at 7 a.m., go home at 7 p.m., and attend various cram classes on weekends. Parents have very little time to intersect with their lives, in the face of children's academic tension, physical and mental exhaustion, how can they be willing to occupy the precious time of children resting at home to understand their mental movements?
In the interview, Tang Yonglong also reminded us to pay special attention to the situation of boarding students. Although residential schools can be regarded as an important indicator of adolescent independence, parents must be careful to judge. He explained that there is no physical privacy space in the dormitory, and psychologically they have to face classmates who are "competitors" every day, and teenagers may always be under high pressure. If you notice that your child has an abnormal state of "depression", you can try to ask "what is frustrating", "is there anything that you can't do about a goal", "what is this goal, why is it important", "is there a reasonable goal that can be replaced", understand the causes and consequences of things, and help your child get through the "depressed emotional state".
Tang Yonglong told the Global Times reporter that China's ability to popularize the mental health of adolescents is low, and the lack of professionals is one of the important reasons. The situation of having 1 counselor per 3,000 students is also difficult to do in universities, and it is even more difficult in primary and secondary schools. Unlike going to the hospital, psychological counseling usually takes a long time, and it is more appropriate for each counselor to receive 3-4 people a day. Moreover, some parents will still think that receiving psychological counseling is "sick" and there will be a "sense of shame", but this phenomenon is gradually improving, and the "post-90s" and "post-00s" have a higher degree of acceptance of seeing psychological counselors.
For the topic of early love, Tang Yonglong said that the school is now more relaxed about this than before. In fact, early love can be seen as an "exercise", which is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. He said that students can be guided to say that when people choose objects, they basically choose to be excellent, and when they are not good enough, the people they like do not necessarily like themselves; only by working hard to become excellent can they get opportunities. In fact, this way can also be understood as a kind of "will be".