Abstract: Adolescence is a period of great change and faces many crises. Therefore, the mental health of adolescents is a matter of great concern to psychologists. Common psychological problems in adolescence include psychological disorders, sexual worries and confusion, study pressure, and interpersonal pressure. It is necessary to do a good job in psychological counseling for teenagers to prevent teenagers from going to extremes. The editor below will briefly introduce and analyze some cases of adolescent psychological counseling. Let’s take a look. 1. What are the mental health problems of adolescents?
Adolescence is a transitional period from childishness to maturity. It is a period of vitality. A period of prosperity and vitality is a period when families begin to move more into society. It is also a period of tremendous changes and facing various crises. According to expert estimates, about 15% of junior high school students and 19% of high school students in my country are mentally unhealthy. In psychological consultation, common psychological problems in adolescents are roughly expressed in the following aspects:
1. Psychological disorders
The most common and serious psychological problems among adolescents is adolescent depression. , because suicide caused by it can bring immeasurable harm and loss to the family. If students experience unhappy, unhappy, and boredom over a period of time; they become bored with things they usually are interested in; their thinking ability declines, their brains become dull, they have difficulty concentrating, and their memory deteriorates; they lose motivation for learning and lose their ability to learn. Becoming "lazy" or even tired of studying; becoming indifferent to the decline in grades or not caring about anything; suffering from insomnia, general weakness, loss of appetite, etc.; and even feeling that life is meaningless and having thoughts of suicide. You should seek advice from a specialist as soon as possible to prevent adverse consequences and further development of the disease.
Phobia is also a common mental illness in adolescence. It manifests as unnatural expressions and blushing when seeing the opposite sex, fear of looking at people or being stared at by others, and uncontrollable use of "peripheral vision" "Looking at people or unable to control their gaze to look at the other person's sensitive parts, thinking that others can see her (his) expression changes and embarrassment, and insight into his inner thoughts, etc., so he avoids others and affects his interactions with others. Very anxious and painful, but often afraid to seek medical treatment because the symptoms are difficult to talk about. Usually, it is not until after working in society that it becomes unbearable before seeking treatment. It has taken many years or even more than ten years from the onset to treatment. Similar symptoms exist for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Condition.
2. Sexual worries and confusion
Sexual worries are caused by the contradiction between the physiological needs of teenagers and social behavioral norms after the awakening of sexual consciousness. The origin of sexual confusion is that teenagers have a sense of wonder and exploration of the physiological changes in their own sexual development and sexual maturity. Due to the constraints of social ethics and the mystification of sex education, psychological conflicts among teenagers often occur. They often believe that "sex is bad", "sexual fantasies about elders of the opposite sex are shameful", "masturbation is harmful to the body", etc., resulting in negative evaluations of sex and excessive sexual repression. Through in-depth research on various neuroses, we have reason to believe that severe self-punishment (psychological or physiological) on masturbation, sexual fantasies, etc. caused by wrong sexual concepts is the psychological hotbed for the occurrence of neurotic symptoms. One of the important reasons, especially severe inferiority complex, phobia and other symptoms. Boys' misconceptions about masturbation, nocturnal emissions, and sexual dreams; girls' negative perceptions and evaluations of menstruation, sexual fantasies, and their own body image; secret viewing of pornographic videos; puppy love and premature sexual intercourse; these are prominent psychological behaviors in adolescence. question. Changing attitudes towards sex should be an important part of psychological cultivation in life. To purify the social atmosphere, schools actively carry out mental health education (including sexual psychology education), organize various colorful activities that are beneficial to the mental health of middle school students, cultivate noble sentiments and parents change traditional concepts, and provide children with healthy sex education early, etc. The healthy development of sexual psychology of middle school students is very important. If necessary, they should receive professional psychological consultation and do not delay their children.
3. Study pressure
For many teenagers, the only task is to study. The excessive study burden on middle school students often brings heavy psychological pressure to them. It is not uncommon for teenagers to fall into pain due to study pressure.
Among them, there are many students with excellent grades in key schools. Their ideological pressure often comes from their dissatisfaction with the current learning situation and inappropriate comparisons. They cannot accept their current situation, pay too much attention to results, and fail to realize the interest in learning. The entire society, The whole school is in an atmosphere of comparison. It is not easy for students to truly give up comparison and accept themselves. Test anxiety, study aversion, concentration and memory problems during learning, etc. are common problems that teenagers and parents come to for consultation. These situations are more concentrated and prominent at the end of the semester, mid-term, promotion to high school, college entrance examination, and major changes in the surrounding environment (such as sudden changes in the relationship between parents, etc.). Some teenagers cannot bear the psychological pressure and sometimes show unusual resistance, resulting in domestic violence. Some even commit suicide passively. Now the whole society is calling for reducing the pressure on primary and secondary school students, hoping that the situation will improve.
4. The pressure of interpersonal communication
As age increases and the awareness of independence increases, teenagers have more and more interactions with society, and their desire for independence becomes increasingly strong. , social interaction and the development of close partnerships are a spiritual need for teenagers. Young people who are troubled by interpersonal pressure usually have low self-esteem, pay too much attention to other people's evaluations, are easily hurt, have high vanity, and are afraid of losing face, etc.
On the one hand, they demand independence, hope to get rid of a life of dependence on their parents, and are eager to get out of the family and establish partnerships; on the other hand, they lack confidence and are afraid of setbacks. Especially those teenagers who are introverted, have weak psychological endurance, and have strong self-esteem, it is easy to feel depressed and lonely in the group, and are enveloped by this psychological shadow and unable to extricate themselves. Parents, teachers or psychologists should help teenagers change some inappropriate cognitions and attitudes, guide teenagers to objectively analyze their current situation, learn to accept themselves, allow themselves to have shortcomings, failures, and possible loss of face. , Perfect people do not exist. Don’t be too demanding of yourself, and don’t place too many high expectations on the outside world. Enhance your confidence and cultivate skills through actions and practices. Adopt bad habits and bad habits.
Although adolescents develop rapidly mentally and physically, their minds are not yet mature at this time, their ability to understand society, distinguish right from wrong, and their ability to control themselves is poor; at the same time, adolescents are highly curious and imitative. This makes them easily influenced by their peers or bad social atmosphere, and can easily develop bad habits and bad hobbies. Nowadays, many teenagers are addicted to electronic games, computer games or surfing the Internet, which seriously endangers the physical and mental health of teenagers. Some teenagers even turn to drugs, theft and other illegal crimes because of making bad friends. In addition, teenagers with behavioral problems (such as antisocial behavior, domestic violence, running away, suicide, etc.) usually receive too much criticism and accusations. They are almost always full of hostility and distrust towards adults, and are often difficult to correct. . How to correctly guide young people is the shared responsibility of families, schools and society.
2. Sexual and psychological characteristics of adolescence
There are currently hundreds of millions of male and female adolescents in adolescence in our country, and their sexual and psychological development is generally normal and healthy. Most of them can better regulate sexual desire and sexual impulses, show speech and behavior that conform to social norms, and treat interactions between the sexes correctly. However, some teenagers also have many problems in certain aspects, some of which are even serious.
As a physical, psychological and social phenomenon, sex is always with everyone and profoundly affects everyone's health, happiness and personality integrity. It can give people both joy and pain. It can lead people to lofty realms, or it can lead people astray and into deep pools.
For teenagers in adolescence, it is the period when sexual physiological development is mature and sexual psychology is gradually maturing. The contradiction between their sexual physiological maturity and sexual psychology is not yet fully mature, as well as the contradiction between sexual physiological needs and The conflict between sexual social norms constitutes a series of problems in the mental health of adolescent men and women. If these problems are handled well, their academic performance will improve, their work will go smoothly, their thinking will progress, and their lives will be happy; otherwise, their physical and mental health and career development will be directly affected. However, in our country, the issue of "sex" has been a very sensitive and taboo issue for a long time. It can be said that "talking about sex changes the color". The problem of sexual incompatibility is also more complex and hidden, and its impact is more profound and profound. lasting.
Therefore, it is more urgent and important for us to study and research this issue now.
We should face reality, break the forbidden zone of "sex", admit that sexual physiology and sexual psychology are sciences, and especially teach male and female teenagers about sexual hygiene in adolescence, so that they can use scientific knowledge to protect their own health and promote develop normally and guide teenagers through adolescence successfully. To this end, we must get out of sexual ignorance, break the vicious cycle of sex, conduct comprehensive sex education for young people, and achieve sexual health. Regard adolescent sexual health education as an indispensable and important component in the construction of socialist spiritual civilization, improve the quality of the entire nation through a healthy and scientific lifestyle, and achieve the health of the nation's own people, family health and social health.
3. Is psychological counseling useful for adolescents?
Adolescence is a special period. At this stage, adolescents’ brain functions continue to increase, their social space of contact continues to expand, and social practice activities The number of children continues to increase, and cognitive abilities develop rapidly, which also brings about a lot of confusion and psychological problems. If you have psychological problems, go to psychological counseling. Psychological counselors will conduct psychological analysis and research on young people, and provide consultation and It can provide guidance and assist education departments or parents in conducting some psychological assessment and analysis on teenagers. It can also analyze and diagnose the psychological conditions of teenagers with different problems and formulate counseling plans and programs, so it is more useful.
However, it should be noted that the youth psychological counseling industry started late, and the level of counselors working in the industry is uneven. If teenagers have psychological problems, parents must take their children to a formal psychological counseling agency and choose one with relevant qualifications. Qualified adolescent psychologists provide psychological consultation and treatment.
4. Case Analysis of Adolescent Psychological Counseling
1. Test Anxiety
[Case] ??“As soon as I get the test paper, my mind goes blank. "Xiao Li's grades have been excellent since she was a child, but after entering the third year of junior high school, her grades dropped again and again. Because she wanted to get into a key high school, she had been studying intensely under self-pressure. After the general review started, every time she got the test paper, her mind went blank. She forgot all the mathematical and physical formulas, and she could no longer do the questions she could do before. She said: "I feel that I have no face to face my parents, so I might as well just die."
[Coping] Every student has test anxiety, but the degree varies from person to person. Obviously Xiaoli has it. Typical test anxiety. At this time, patient encouragement from parents and parents is very important. Parents should first accept their children's nervousness and anxiety, listen to their children's worries and uneasiness, and let them slowly give up those unfavorable thoughts, thereby improving the situation of test anxiety. Children can also find a close friend to vent all their grievances.
[Psychological Tips] The so-called "test anxiety" refers to the physical or psychological tension caused by exams. Physical stress, such as: rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, confusion or blank mind, etc.; psychological stress is mostly in the form of worry, for example: worry that there will be a lot of questions that you will not be able to write in the exam, worry that you will fail the test Being scolded by parents, etc.
2. Obsessive-compulsive disorder
[Case] ??Since entering high school, Linlin feels that studying is more stressful than before, but the first thing she does when she returns home is to clean up her home. Organize and categorize everything. After doing this, you can concentrate on your homework. Sometimes things that have been put away will be taken out and put away again. This kind of thing always has to be repeated several times, and finally you have to do it all to get yourself to approve it before you stop this behavior. This cost Linlin a lot of precious time, and she felt very annoyed about it, but she said she couldn't control herself.
[Coping] Generally speaking, there is a potential reason behind obsessive-compulsive disorder, such as parents pursuing perfection and having high demands on their children, etc. If parents find that their children are often in a daze, do homework very slowly, bite nails, shrug shoulders, etc., they should pay attention. This is likely to be a compulsive behavior. At this time, parents should pay attention to observe their children and understand why they behave like this. reasons and take your child to see a doctor as early as possible.
[Psychological Tips] Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a mental illness that uses ritualized behaviors to reduce inner anxiety. Patients will have lingering thoughts and have to do behaviors. Mainly manifested as obsessive thinking or compulsive behavior. Obsessive thinking refers to certain thoughts, impulses, emotions, etc. that repeatedly appear in the patient's mind. The patient can realize that these are unnecessary and want to get rid of them, but cannot get rid of them, so they are very distressed.
3. Ambiguous gender roles
[Case] ??It is obviously a boy, 10 years old this year, fair and fair. Because his father died early, he lived with his grandmother since he was a child. A week after school started, some of his unusual behaviors caught the teacher's attention. He spoke in a coquettish voice and often hugged young female teachers and acted coquettishly. A month later, he not only hugged the female teacher, but also often hugged female classmates, and sometimes kissed girls.
[Response] Mingming’s behavior is obviously due to the ambiguity of gender roles. Psychological experts found after research that Mingming’s social network since childhood was almost exclusively female, which made him love to play with girls and think that they are Same idea as myself. In order to change this gender bias, you can ask his grandfather and male teachers at school to talk, communicate and play with him often. At the same time, you can consciously arrange for some male classmates to play games with him so that he can affirm himself under the example of male role models. He is a man and gradually learns to be brave and strong.
[Psychological Tips] The so-called gender role ambiguity refers to an individual’s misalignment of their gender role identity. Generally speaking, from about the age of 3, children begin to gradually form the concept of gender roles. If a little boy sees himself as the same person as the girls around him and strives to imitate women in dress, expression, and behavior, he becomes a feminine boy, and vice versa.
4. Neophobia
[Case] ??Qingqing is 8 years old and has just entered the first grade. She was originally a very lively and lovely child. But in the past six months, every morning before going to school, she would try her best to find excuses to stay at home and refuse to leave. She might have chills, bloated stomach, stomach pain, or she didn't sleep well last night, couldn't bear to eat, etc. But once the weekends come and I don’t have to go to school, all the abnormal emotions disappear. After a doctor's examination, it was discovered that Xiao Qingqing was suffering from academic phobia.
[Coping] Various pressures from parents, schools and teachers, improper education methods, and children's timidity, sensitivity, inability to withstand criticism and other personality traits can easily lead to phobia. Parents should first find out the reasons why their children do not want to go to school, and do not use simple intimidation methods to force them to go to school. Start by keeping your child at school for an hour, and if this is successful, gradually increase the time.
[Psychological Tips] "Achophobia" is a serious mental illness in children, which is more common among primary school students aged 7-12. Because students are afraid of going to school and have a phobia, it is also called school phobia. Common manifestations are that children are afraid of going to school, and even openly refuse to go to school. They feel reluctant and unhappy when they go to school. They do not go to school when it is time to go or put forward harsh conditions. Once they arrive at school, they go home with excuses, or in the early morning of the day of school or the day before. She complained of headache, dizziness, abdominal pain, vomiting and other discomforts at night. The above symptoms did not appear during holidays.
5. Body image worries
[Case] ??Xiaoliang is in the second grade of junior high school this year and is the study committee member of the class. However, he has a lanky body and poor appearance. When he first started to fall in love, he fell in love with a girl in his class. Unexpectedly, after confessing his love, the girl turned around and ran away. As he ran away, he shouted: "I'm so ugly." "Am I really ugly?" Xiao Liang He kept asking himself, and when he went back that day, he looked in the mirror. In the mirror, he had small eyes and a flat nose. The more he looked at himself, the uglier he became, and he developed an inferiority complex. He wanted to "change his appearance", but he had no choice, so he often suffered from insomnia and began to care about other people's opinions of him. He never dared to go to crowded places, and his grades finally plummeted.
[Response] Boys are more worried that their bodies are not tall enough, while girls are worried that their bodies are not graceful enough. Students who enter junior high school gradually begin to pay attention to their own image as their physiology changes. Many of these teenagers even have serious mental burdens due to appearance or physical defects. It can be said that body image worries are among the various psychological worries of teenagers. occupies a high proportion of them.
Psychological experts suggest telling these children that no one is perfect in body image, and that handsome men and beauties also have shortcomings. Tell them that temperament is the most important thing, and they must learn to appreciate their own talents. For example, although Xiaoliang’s eyes are Small, but very impressive. Although he looks ordinary, he has a good figure.
[Little Psychological Tips] Body image worry is a kind of sexual psychological disorder, which usually appears during puberty and development. Faced with the sudden emergence of gender differences at this time, teenagers often lack sufficient psychological preparation. They will involuntarily compare themselves with others, and once there is a big gap, some of them will have body image worries.
6. Frustration in love
[Case] ??Xiao Yang, a tall, thin and frail boy, has developed a crush on his female classmate since the first year of high school. He always buys two ice creams. I lent new books to others on my own initiative, and even escorted my classmates home after school in the evening. At the end of the semester, Xiao Yang excitedly proposed "developing a romantic relationship," but his deskmate said he was "crooked" and asked the teacher to change his seat. After being doused with cold water, Xiao Yang not only failed to calm down, but also had obsessive thoughts: "Why doesn't she like me? Am I too thin? Am I not good enough for her?" Random thoughts all day long caused his grades to continue to rise. Decline, and finally one day, he chose to commit suicide.
[Response] The psychological development and physical development of teenagers are often out of sync, so frustration in love often makes them discouraged. At this time, those with poor psychological endurance are prone to mental illness. Therefore, parents and teachers should detect young people who are frustrated in love as early as possible and provide them with correct guidance and meticulous care. Teachers can carry out adolescent sex education for teenagers, and use excellent literary and artistic works and the deeds of great people to help them form a correct world view.
[Psychological Tips] Children in adolescence are often more sensitive. At this time, some small things can easily cause psychological problems, such as love frustration and body image worries.
7. Social Phobia
[Case] ??"If you want me to speak on stage, you might as well kill me." Xiao Zhang is a high school student with an introverted personality. When I was in junior high school, I liked to look askance at the girls in the same row, which aroused her disgust. Even after changing seats, he still couldn't change his behavior. Later, even boys didn't want to sit next to him. From then on, he believed that the most difficult thing to deal with in the world was people, and he was very afraid of interacting with people. The teacher said that every time he met a classmate, he had to take turns to speak on stage. He would rather pretend to be sick and skip school than dare to speak to the classmates with whom he got along day and night. Xiao Zhang obviously suffers from social phobia.
[Coping] If introverted children do not pay attention to adjusting their psychological state during adolescence, they will be afraid of interacting with others, which will lead to social phobia. Therefore, parents should promptly review whether their behavior towards their children is appropriate, correct inappropriate educational behaviors as early as possible, and give more praise and encouragement to their children. Children should pay attention to training to look at others with bold and confident eyes, laying a foundation for building self-confidence.
[Psychological Tips] People with social phobia often have significant and persistent worries or concerns when speaking to unfamiliar people, exercising in front of people, or interacting with the opposite sex. Fear that one will face embarrassment or humiliation. Patients generally adopt avoidance behaviors towards the feared environment. Even if they persist, it is very painful. They often experience symptoms such as anxiety, excessive sweating, flushed face and ears.
8. Learning Disability
[Case] ??Xiaoli just entered school this year, but her parents found that her child was very careless when writing homework. He often wrote out more words and missed strokes, and copied the wrong answers. . Once the test paper was handed out, her parents found that many questions had been missed, but Xiaoli said that she had not seen these questions at all. The parents felt that there was a problem with their child's learning attitude and deliberately refused to do the questions, so they gave her a good beating, but the whole time For one semester, this situation has not improved.
[Response] Experts pointed out that Xiaoli actually has dysgraphia. Generally, the eyes of such patients seem to be different from others, like "lazy eyes", which will miss a lot of obvious information. This is manifested in turning a blind eye when studying, and can throw away the entire question, but later say that they did not see the question. This kind of child is most likely to be misunderstood by teachers and parents. In fact, this is a special learning ability disorder. Only relevant visual perception training can achieve results. Therefore, when encountering children with poor academic performance, parents and teachers should first understand what problems their children have in their learning psychology and how serious it is, so as to design an individualized education plan for the child, targeting special learning abilities. training.
[Tips] Learning disability refers to the phenomenon of normal intelligence but low performance due to lagging learning ability. Research shows that about 5% to 10% of school students are children with learning disabilities. Learning disabilities are made up of several different types, including dysgraphia, dyslexia, and math difficulties (also called nonverbal learning disabilities).
9. Schizophrenia
[Case] ??Since Xiao Wang entered the third year of high school, his grades have gone from bad to worse. He hides in his room every day when he gets home, and rarely follows his classmates. My parents talk less and less, and I have less and less contact with friends.
At first, Wang's mother thought that Xiao Wang was temporarily unable to adapt to the situation due to the great pressure to enter a higher education. Unexpectedly, Xiao Wang's condition became more and more weird, and he talked to himself all day long. One night after dinner, Xiao Wang actually claimed that he saw King Yama trying to take his life, and his parents were bull-headed horses, so he picked up a kitchen knife and wanted to kill his parents. Finally, Xiao Wang was sent to the hospital emergency room and was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
[Response] Since this type of disease often has many precursors in daily life, parents or teachers should be alert and send them to the hospital for treatment as soon as they notice the signs to avoid missing the opportunity for treatment. The ability of such patients to cope with setbacks is worse than that of normal people. Therefore, when faced with greater pressure in life, they may deteriorate and be unable to undertake large learning tasks. Patients’ psychological burden should be minimized and patients should not have too high expectations. Many less-stressful household chores can be left to the patient to handle, so that the patient can consciously contribute to the family and improve his or her self-confidence.
[Tips] Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that mostly occurs between the ages of 15 and 20. The main symptoms include disorders in thinking, emotion, behavior and many other aspects. At the beginning of the disease, patients may show signs of a sharp decline in grades or work performance, social withdrawal, and poor personal hygiene habits. During the incubation period, if appropriate treatment is not provided, the condition will worsen and lead to hallucinations, delusions, incoherent speech, Symptoms such as strange behavior.
10. Depression
[Case] ??Xiao Zhang is a freshman in high school and is one of the extremely poor students in a certain school. One day he went to his head teacher and said nervously and hastily: "I'm done. It's been more than a month. I've been insomnia almost all night, and I'm in a daze and often vomit during the day." As he said this, he raised his hand to adjust his glasses in frustration, and there was a streak on his right wrist. Scars appeared clearly, marks left by his recent attempt to commit suicide by cutting his veins.
[Response] After consultation with a psychologist, it was discovered that Xiao Zhang suffered from depression. Experts suggest that in order to avoid psychological problems leading to depression, students can arrange their lives and studies to be more fulfilling, avoid feeling lost due to too many daydreams and random thoughts, and participate in more cultural and sports activities to make themselves feel better. In addition, you can also have more heart-to-heart conversations with your parents and close classmates, pour out your worries to them, and make yourself feel happy.
[Tips] Depression is a mental illness whose main clinical manifestation is abnormally low mood, which is characterized by: boredom, powerlessness, hopelessness, incompetence, and helplessness. Symptoms include: extreme sadness, hopelessness, fatigue, physical illness. For people suffering from depression, the degree and nature of their depression far exceed the limits of normal variation, unlike the various troubles in daily life that can easily "dissipate" gradually.
11. Mobile phone addiction
The reasons are lack of warmth in life, lack of confidence in life and study, spiritual emptiness, and lack of education.
The consequences include declining grades, being tempted by mobile phone pornography, decreased concentration and memory, myopia, and a cold personality.
We should replace playing with mobile phones with positive interests and guide them to surf the Internet correctly. School life is often very boring. In many schools, apart from studying, there are few other leisure activities. This is the result of exam-oriented education. In fact, allowing teenagers to participate in more leisure activities can stimulate their interest in learning without affecting their learning.