mental health counseling

Mental health counseling is neither a treatment method "exclusively for mental patients" nor a paid emotional soothing service for the soul. It is essentially a professional service provided by counselors who have received systematic professional training and rely on a scientific psychological framework to help you clarify your self-perception, relieve emotional stucks, and find ways to deal with real-life problems. More than 90% of ordinary people who encounter emotional distress, relationship conflicts, and development confusion can benefit from it.

Last month, I received a 28-year-old Internet operator Xiao Zhou in the consulting room. She had suffered from insomnia for three months, failed to defend her promotion, and was in a cold war with her boyfriend of four years. People around her advised her to "just be more open-minded." Her parents said, "You just have poor stress tolerance."

In response to her situation that is compounded by career frustration, conflict in intimate relationships, and self-denial, the intervention logic of counselors from different schools is completely different: Psychoanalytically oriented counselors will first trace her childhood experiences. For example, when she was a child, her parents would bully her for a week every time she failed in a test. She subconsciously equates "failed to do one thing" with "I am not worthy of being loved", and first dismantles the inertial pattern of emotional reactions from the root.； A cognitive-behavioral (CBT) counselor will first help her find out the irrational beliefs in her mind, such as absolute judgments such as "failed for promotion = my ability is very poor" and "boyfriend's cold war = he definitely wants to break up", and then give her small tasks that can be implemented, such as recording three small things that she has done well every day, to first pull her out of the whirlpool of self-denial. ； A humanistic counselor will not rush to give a plan, but will first accept all her emotions throughout the process, let her cry out the grievances she has been holding back for several months, and first let her make sure that "all your feelings are reasonable and you don't have to blame yourself." No school is absolutely correct, the best one is the one that suits the client's personality and needs.

Many people will question, "Why do we charge hundreds of dollars an hour if we just have a chat?" ”I previously chatted with a senior counselor who has been working for 12 years. He said that after each consultation, he had to write a case record of nearly 2,000 words. He had to go back and find the emotional clues behind the pauses in certain sentences and the expressions of hesitations. He also had to read the literature in the corresponding field to confirm whether the intervention methods were biased. Most of the time, ending a consultation was more tiring than a three-hour meeting. Survey data from the Chinese Psychological Society in 2023 can also support the effect: among the visitors who persisted in more than 8 standardized consultations, 76.2% had a significant decrease in their emotional distress scores such as anxiety and depression, and 68.9% found practical solutions to practical problems such as parent-child conflicts and career confusion. The effect was much higher than simply asking friends to complain and shouldering the problem by themselves.

Of course, there is no need to deify consultation. I have seen many first-time clients come in and ask, "Can you just give me a way so that I won't be anxious tomorrow?" ”To be honest, I can't. Consultation is more like unblocking the "emotional blockage" in the heart. It is impossible to rub away the knots that have been blocked for three to five years. Most ordinary people's consultation cycle is 4-12 times. It is the same reason that you cannot get rid of your waistline after going to the gym in just one visit. Counselors can’t read minds. If you hold back your true thoughts, no matter how powerful the counselor is, they won’t be able to guess what you are thinking. Don’t have the mentality that “the counselor has full responsibility to cure me.” After all, you are the only one who can pull you out of the quagmire. The counselor is just the person who hands you the rope and tells you which side is the shore.

Not all consultations are useful. If the consultant you meet labels you "It's all your family of origin's fault" or "You're just too sensitive" right away, or keeps selling you long-distance packages worth tens of thousands of yuan, then there is a high probability that you have encountered an unprofessional approach. When choosing a counselor, first check whether he has qualifications in the registration system of the Chinese Psychological Society and whether he has a training background in the corresponding field. If you feel uncomfortable during the first consultation and the other party does not respect your feelings, you can simply end the consultation and change counselors without forcing yourself to cooperate.

Yesterday Xiao Zhou also sent me a message, saying that he took the initiative to chat with his boyfriend for two hours last week. Although he has not completely reconciled, he at least let go of the dissatisfaction he had been holding in for a long time. He also applied for resumes from two companies that are more in line with his career plan. Now he has been able to sleep for six hours. She finally said, "It turns out that I don't have to force myself to be an emotionally stable adult. It's normal to allow myself to cry and not be able to get out for a while."

You see, counseling will never transform you into a perfect person, it will only help you become a more comfortable version of yourself.