However, we should not simply look at mental health education from the traditional perspective. From the perspective of modern education, school mental health education is an idea, a spirit, a service and a technology, which has its own characteristics. Therefore, when understanding the essence of school mental health education, we should pay attention to the following aspects.
1. School mental health education is a student-centered educational activity.
Traditional education (such as pedagogy in Kailov) emphasizes teacher-centered, textbook-centered and classroom-centered to a great extent, while mental health education actually emphasizes student-centered, student-centered and active participation of all students. Mental health education insists that students are the main body of their own understanding, growth and development, emphasizes the main position of students, highlights their main role, encourages students to explore independently, and "makes students become independent thinkers" by giving full play to their enthusiasm, initiative and consciousness (Bruner language). Therefore, school mental health education is student-centered education; It is an education that truly embodies "creating an education suitable for students".
2. School mental health education is an educational activity with development concept.
Education is for development, and the development concept of mental health education is to lay a solid foundation for students' sustainable development; The second is to let every student develop (all development); The third is to promote students' all-round development (all-round development); Fourth, we firmly believe that every student will develop and have the potential for development, so we should stimulate and develop every student's potential to the maximum extent. Among them, the potential development is the real value of school mental health education. Therefore, the essence of school mental health education is based on the "zone of proximal development" of students' psychology (Vygotsky language), relying on a natural "self-realization" motivation of human organisms (Rogers language) to create a new foundation for students' psychological development and promote students' psychological development to reach the best level continuously.
3. School mental health education is an educational activity with its own "paradigm"
Although mental health education is a new educational activity in China schools, it has a relatively complete educational model that reflects its own laws, that is, a "paradigm" composed of a series of "personalized" principles, such as taking the mental health of educators as the premise, taking the whole as the object, taking growth as the center, focusing on development, taking activities as the carrier, taking respect as the basis and taking self-help as the purpose, especially following the principle of confidentiality in individual counseling. This "paradigm" is not only the embodiment of the basic concept and spiritual essence of mental health education in modern schools, but also the basic requirement for schools to carry out mental health education. In other words, every link in this paradigm can be called an important principle, which constitutes the premise of effective mental health education.
4. School mental health education is an educational activity based on new interpersonal relationships.
Compared with traditional education, mental health education especially advocates and emphasizes the cooperative and democratic interpersonal relationship between teachers and students. This interpersonal relationship is characterized by sincerity, intimacy, respect, understanding, trust and support between teachers and students. As a positive process of interpersonal mutual assistance, teachers should treat students with empathy, adopt a non-critical attitude, avoid treating students with orders or lessons, and play more roles as friends, "consultants" and even "companions" of students. Only in this way can students open their hearts and receive education and counseling. In the process of education (tutoring), teachers only help students solve problems, not replace them. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the interaction, communication and common development between peers.
5. School mental health education is an educational activity with the mechanism of "helping others → helping each other → helping themselves".
The basic meaning of mental health education is "helping others to help themselves". In the process of mental health education, students are both recipients and helpers. As a recipient, he or she gets help and lessons from others (teachers, parents, classmates, etc.). ); As a helper, he or she can help others (mainly people of the same age) with his or her own thoughts and actions. Vertically, students are the recipients first, and then become helpers; Horizontally, students should play the role of both receiver and helper. But whether vertically or horizontally, the ultimate and most important purpose of mental health education is to help students themselves. Therefore, educators should put themselves in the position of "helpers" and should not take the place of students to solve problems with the attitude of "knowing everything"; Second, by establishing harmonious interpersonal relationships, creating a good collective atmosphere, mobilizing students' own educational resources, and promoting students to internalize the experience they have learned in the process of "helping others" and "helping each other" into their own life skills, so as to achieve "self-help" and then achieve self-improvement and development.
6. School mental health education is a service-oriented educational activity.
School mental health education is a service. In school education, mental health education has its specific service content. From the function of school psychological education itself, it should not only directly serve the growth and development of students, such as identification, information, consultation, orientation, placement, continuation and research, but also serve the mental health of teachers. From the perspective of the extended function of school psychological education, it should also serve the school's education and teaching and its reform, optimize the school's educational environment, serve the family education, and even provide services and help to the community education. Obviously, as far as the latter function is concerned, the service of school mental health education is not only an infiltration of ideas, but also a technical support.
7. School mental health education is an educational activity with unique goals.
As a part of school education, the goal of school mental health education is consistent with that of school education. However, the nature of mental health education is different from that of other schools. It directly points to students' mental health, so its goal is unique. It is necessary to provide targeted psychological counseling and even psychotherapy for a small number of students with psychological problems (correction goal), and to provide "nip in the bud" psychological counseling (prevention goal) according to the characteristics of students' psychological development, so as to cultivate students' more mature, richer and more sound psychological quality and psychological life (development goal) at the current level of students' psychological development. In other words, mental health education should not only make a few students with psychological problems return to normal, but also promote the better development of most normal students. In the whole process of mental health education, it is necessary to give consideration to personal goals and social goals.
8. School mental health education is an educational activity that requires specialized skills.
Mental health education is the application of professional knowledge and skills. As an educational activity, mental health education needs not only general educational skills, but also special professional skills. For example, in the process of consultation, psychological counselors need to use exquisite professional skills such as concentration, acceptance, listening and empathy; And role-playing, psychological drama, system desensitization, etc. , is some specialized technology. It can be said that these professional skills and technologies are the improvement of traditional education methods, and some of them are even not available in traditional education skills. Because of this, this special skill not only becomes a powerful supplement to traditional educational skills, but also brings some kind of "revolution" to traditional educational skills. Of course, it is one of the prerequisites for teachers to master this special skill and technology.
Finally, it should be pointed out that mental health education is related to other help activities, such as psychological counseling, psychological counseling, psychotherapy, etc., which are different, related and even cross. We can think of these help activities as different stages in a continuum. From the service object, education and consultation are mainly normal students; Counseling is mainly aimed at normal people with mild to moderate personal problems; Treatment is mainly for mental patients. Functionally, education and consultation focus on development and prevention; Treatment focuses on correction and reconstruction. In terms of methods, education often takes the form of groups, and counseling and treatment are generally carried out separately. Counseling can be a group or an individual. In addition, in terms of time, education is lifelong, and consultation is accompanied by the process of education. There is always a certain time limit for consultation and treatment. It can be seen that mental health education is a "big" concept, which can cover counseling and counseling activities, but this is relative, because counseling and counseling activities also include "education" factors, and there is a certain overlapping or overlapping relationship between them. A correct understanding of the relationship between these help activities will undoubtedly help to further clarify the essence of school mental health education.