Self-Healing Psychology: Strategies for Coping with Various Daily Psychological Problems

The vast majority of daily psychological distress encountered by ordinary people - such as social rumination over and over again and again wondering "Did I just say the wrong thing?", procrastination anxiety when deadlines are stacked above one's head while scrolling through mobile phones, and emotional internal friction when one is too tired to move even though he has not done any heavy work. In essence, there is no need to seek long-term professional intervention immediately. As long as the three core logics of "stop self-attack → anchor small controllable actions → establish an exclusive emotional rebound mechanism" are grasped, 80% of the problems can be alleviated within 72 hours.

In the six years I have been working as a community psychological service provider, I have seen too many people label themselves as "depression" or "anxiety disorder" whenever their mood fluctuates. They turn around and search for a bunch of self-healing guides. The more they read, the more they feel that they are seriously ill. Instead, they turn small problems into big burdens. Take the most common self-attack as an example. The cognitive behavioral school (CBT) will define this subconscious denial as "negative automatic thinking" and will teach you to replace "Why am I so stupid" with "I didn't do that well just now" and transform personality judgments into specific event descriptions. ； A psychoanalytic counselor may guide you to look back on your childhood experiences of being judged and find the source of your self-attack. But for daily small emotions, you don’t have to dig that deep. I saw a junior high school teacher who would hide in the office and scold herself for two hours after every open class. Later, she tried the stupidest method: putting a rubber band on her wrist, and flicking herself whenever she had the thought of self-attack. The pain brought her attention back to the present moment. Three weeks later, the duration of her self-attack had dropped to less than 10 minutes. Oh, by the way, I also tried the "emotional diary method" that is very popular on the Internet before. I gave up after writing for three days. Later I found out that it was not that the method was useless, but that I didn't like writing in the first place, and forcing myself to write only added more KPIs that I couldn't complete. So I don't use any method on myself. The best one is the best for you.

It's not enough to just stop scolding yourself. After stopping, many people fall into the confusion of "I feel better now, but what should I do next?", and instead start a new round of internal friction. At this time, there is no need to force yourself to resurrect with full health immediately. People with strong mobility can try the "5-minute activation method" uploaded online. No matter what you do, do it for 5 minutes beforehand. ； But if you are a highly sensitive person, forcing yourself will be counterproductive. Why not try the core logic of Morita therapy: live with symptoms. If you don't want to write a resume, just turn on the computer and bring up the template. If you don't want to clean up the room, just throw away the empty milk tea cup on the table. There is no need to ask yourself to enter a "high-efficiency state" immediately, just touch the side of what you want to do first. Last month, a young girl who had just graduated came to me and said that she had been lying at home for three weeks after she resigned. She couldn't write a word on her resume. Every day she opened her eyes, she called herself useless. I didn't let her write her resume right away. I asked her to turn on the computer when she got up every day and bring up the resume template. She even sat down for 5 minutes to watch a TV show. As a result, she wrote two lines of work experience on the fourth day and got an interview offer the next week.

If you think that these two steps can solve the problem once and for all, you are too naive. After all, there are more troubles in daily life than coriander in takeout. The mood you just calmed down may be turned back to its original state by an overtime WeChat message from the boss. At this time, you must have an exclusive emotional rebound mechanism. Don't believe in the nonsense that "emotional stability is a compulsory course for adults", and don't force yourself to "digest it inward" - some schools advocate not dumping negative emotions outward for fear of burdening others, but positive psychology research has long confirmed that: as long as the person you confide to is safe (such as friends and family members who are willing to listen to your complaints), the emotional channeling efficiency of outward complaints is three times that of being depressed yourself. My own rebound mechanism is to save a "happy backup folder", which contains silly videos of my cat stepping on my breasts, chat records of friends praising me, and pink sunset photos I took at the beach. When I am not in the right mood, I just scroll through it for 5 minutes. It is more effective than drinking three cups of hot milk tea. I have also seen some people relieve stress by playing Lego, some people take a half-hour bus ride to eat a bowl of spicy noodles, and some people even calm down by combing their dog at home. There is no standard answer, but a good method can make you feel better quickly.

Of course, to be honest, self-healing can only be done with "emotional colds". If you have insomnia for more than two weeks in a row, can't eat, and are no longer interested in all the things you used to like, don't force it, go see a professional psychiatrist or psychological counselor immediately. If it really develops into a pathological problem, relying on yourself to force it will only make it worse.

In the final analysis, self-healing is never a lofty psychological concept, and it does not require you to memorize many theories or take many certificates. It is just the steps you leave for yourself. If you fall and hurt, don't scold yourself for being so careless. Get up first, dust yourself off, find a place to sit and eat a candy, and just pay more attention to the road next time you walk. After all, we don’t live to be emotionless machines that feel pain, get tired, and occasionally want to be lazy. This is what normal people should be like.