mental health quotes

The mental health quotes that can really help people are never the beautifully packaged emotional chicken soup, but the "minimum action guide" that can correspond to specific difficulties extracted from thousands of real consultations and self-help experiences by counselors of various schools and recoveries who have personally experienced psychological difficulties.

The first time I had a real sense of this kind of famous saying was in a supervision class for novice counselors. The supervisor did not teach any complicated theories, but just wrote Winnicott's "You don't need to be a perfect parent/lover/employee, just be a 'good enough' one" on the whiteboard, and said that when you meet those clients who are always self-condemning in the future, throw this sentence to them first, it will be much more useful than analyzing childhood trauma for half an hour. Later, I met a female product manager from an Internet company who was reviewing the loopholes in last week's project even when she went to the amusement park with her daughter on the weekends. She felt that she was "neither a good employee nor a good mother." I didn't say anything else at the time, so I mentioned to her, "As long as it's good enough," she cried on the spot. She said that in her 32 years of life, this was the first time someone told her that she didn't need to get 100 points.

Of course, not all practitioners agree with this "feeling flow" statement. A friend of mine who practices cognitive behavioral therapy always jokes that this kind of statement is too "empty". When you meet people who are stuck in self-denial and can't get out, it is better to tell them directly what Skinner said: "There is nothing wrong with you, it's just a certain behavior pattern of yours." ”Last time, a college student with serious social anxiety came to him for consultation. The first thing he said was, "I'm a loser. I don't even dare to say hello to my classmates." My friend didn't follow his self-attack, so he explained to him: You are not a loser, you just "opened your mouth to people you don't know." This behavior has not established positive feedback for the time being. Let's slowly adjust the model. It has nothing to do with whether you are a good person or not. With just this sentence, he was relieved of the self-denial he had been holding on to for a long time, and subsequent consultations became much smoother.

Oh, by the way, there are also many truths that are not said by any psychology masters, but are discovered by ordinary recovering people themselves. I once saw someone in a group for patients with bipolar disorder post something that was later upvoted hundreds of times by other members of the group: “Allow yourself to lie flat for half an hour and do whatever you want with the rest of the time. ”Sounds very rough, right? But it really works. I once had a client with anxiety disorder who set this sentence as a screen saver on his mobile phone. Every time he felt his heartbeat was racing and he was out of breath, he would give himself half an hour off, sit on the sofa and watch some unnutritious cat videos. He did not have to force himself to "regulate his emotions immediately". When the half hour was up, it was time to change the report or pick up the child. On the contrary, it was much more efficient than before.

Of course, some people will argue that these famous quotes are "standing and talking without back pain." I once saw a severely depressed netizen scolding "accepting your imperfect self" as bullshit. I didn't even have the strength to get up, so how could I accept it? In fact, there is nothing wrong with this view. People in different states need different "famous quotes". For patients who are still in the acute stage, "love yourself" and "accept yourself" are too far away. Instead, words that are particularly specific and have no high level are more useful, such as "If you can get out of bed and drink a glass of warm water today, you will have completed the KPI", "If you don't want to talk, just say it, no one will blame you". These words have no philosophy, but they can give people a little strength to hold on at that moment.

I have been doing this for almost 6 years, and I have dozens of these "famous quotes" saved in the memo on my phone. Some have been written in monographs by psychology masters, some have been casually recited to me by clients after consultations, and some have been thought out by me when I was depressed. After all, there is no standard answer when it comes to mental health. If it can make you feel better at the moment, it is the best quote for you.