Mental Health Service Center

The mental health service center you are asking about now is essentially a psychological support network that covers the entire life cycle of the entire population, rather than a diagnosis and treatment institution only for patients with mental illness. Even if you just have an emotional breakdown after working overtime recently, are in a panic after an argument with your family, are unable to calm down during the postgraduate entrance examination, or even if you just want to find a place where no one knows you to complain, you can go in and get help.

Last week I was on duty at the district's public psychological service center, and I met a junior girl with a high ponytail, holding her schoolbag and hanging under the sycamore tree at the door for a full 20 minutes. The first thing she said when she came in was "Doctor, I just have insomnia recently, it's not mental illness, right?" ”It made me amused and a little sad.

To be honest, there is currently no completely unified consensus on the functional boundaries of service centers in the industry: centers with a psychiatric background generally have psychiatric practitioners stationed there, and they prefer "early screening and early intervention." If someone has suffered from insomnia for more than two consecutive weeks, is not interested in anything, or even has thoughts of self-harm, go here for a preliminary investigation first, and directly refer those who meet the indications to a specialized mental health hospital, which is much more reliable than blindly searching on Baidu.； Centers with a more clinical psychology background are mainly registered psychological counselors and family therapists. They are better at dealing with developmental problems such as conflicts in intimate relationships, adolescents' boredom with school, and job burnout. Most of them can be solved without taking medicine and just a few conversations. Of course, there are different voices. For example, many counselors from the cognitive behavioral school insist that we must not accept cases of severe depressive episodes without medical advice to avoid safety issues. However, there are also counselors from the existential school who believe that as long as safety plans are made and linkages are maintained with family members and attending doctors, auxiliary emotional support can help patients get through the acute phase faster. This is still being discussed in the industry, and there is no unified answer.

Last month, our center received a 32-year-old delivery boy. He was complained by customers for three consecutive months and his money was deducted. Later, when he received the order notification, he became panicked and his hands shook. He went to the hospital to check his heart and thyroid and found no problems. He was introduced by the community union. We didn't label him as an "anxiety disorder." We first took him to participate in three weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction group counseling. Each session lasted for one and a half hours, where he was guided to breathe and relax his muscles. At the same time, we helped him connect to the platform's appeal channel and got back several fines for wrongful convictions. Later, he made a special detour to bring us a bottle of iced black tea, saying that his palms would no longer sweat when taking orders now, and the bottle was still stained with the residual warmth of his takeout box.

Many people don’t know that mental health service centers in public streets, communities, and universities are basically free of charge and charge a few dozen yuan at most for consumables. Only private centers that focus on corporate EAP or high-end consulting will charge by the hour, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Let me also remind everyone that a regular service center will never give you a diagnosis as soon as you receive it for the first time, or urge you to buy a consultation package ten or twenty times. If you encounter this kind of situation, you can just leave. This is the red line in the industry. No practitioner with some professional ethics can do this.

To put it interestingly, the waiting area of ​​our center has never had a sign saying "Psychological Counseling Waiting Area". Instead, there is a half-person-high bookshelf with a pile of comics, flower gardening guides, and even children's picture books. Many adults and adults passing by think that we are a community reading room and often come in to read books under the air conditioner. If they meet someone who is in a bad mood, our counselors can easily chat with them, which is better than sitting in the consultation room.

There used to be a retired middle school teacher. After his wife left, he cried at home every day. His children persuaded him three times before he would come. The first thing he said when he came in was "I have taught all my life, how can I be mentally ill?", which made me laugh and cry. He received grief counseling eight times, and now he comes to the center every Wednesday as a volunteer. He wears reading glasses to help other widowed elderly people sort out their emotions, which is easier than us young counselors.

Yesterday when I was getting off work, I met a second-year junior high school kid who had come for counseling on learning boredom. He was waiting for his counselor at the door with a skateboard on his back. He said that he was ranked 17th in the class this week and wanted to treat the counselor to some popsicles. The wind blew through the sycamore tree at the door, and the leaves rustled. No one thought that this place was "for patients." To put it bluntly, it was just a tree hole where you could stop and take a breath without having to hold on.