In daily life, "mental health" is sometimes a difficult term to define, and it can even be a state that is hard to distinguish. For example, when a situation arises that makes someone angry, is the person who immediately loses their temper healthier, or is the person who feels emotionally numb healthier?

 

Mental health is a flexible and resilient state

It allows you to turn life from a "single-choice question" into a "multiple-choice question."

First, let me clarify two points:

1. Mental health is not about being happy every day without worries—that's for deities, not humans.
2. Mental health is also not about so-called "positive energy." Positive energy is an adaptive mindset, but pure positivity does not represent mental health.

Of course, there are countless ways to define mental health, and none are absolutely correct. The definition I want to offer is that mental health is having a "flexible and resilient" mental capacity that helps you live more authentically and completely.

You might ask, what does "flexible and resilient" mean? We will answer this question shortly. But first, let's look at what mental unhealthiness looks like.

If we were to represent mental health on a continuous spectrum, the healthiest end would be "flexible and resilient," and the least healthy end would be "pathological rigidity."

 

Let's illustrate with two examples:

• There’s a person named Xiao A. No matter what anyone says to him, his reaction is always the same: right hand raised high, left hand on his waist, shouting "Long live Xiao A!" three times. This is the most extreme form of rigidity, where he responds to every situation in the same way, which makes it impossible for Xiao A to interact with others, let alone work or live normally.
• Another person, Xiao B, has to count the windows on his building every time he returns home. There are 362 windows in total, and only when he counts them correctly can he go back home. If he makes a mistake, he has to start over. As a result, he often spends one or two hours standing downstairs before he can return home. This is a compulsive behavior, clearly demonstrating a certain level of rigidity. However, aside from counting windows, Xiao B can live normally, so his rigidity is much less severe than Xiao A's.

You might think, "These people must be sick, but I don’t do that." However, if we continue along the spectrum from unhealthy to healthy, you might find yourself somewhere in the middle, where you also display some rigid and inflexible thoughts or behaviors in certain situations, such as:

• Suffering from severe procrastination, especially when faced with more urgent tasks;
• Performing well in small tests but failing in major exams;
• Always trying to avoid interacting with a specific type of person;
• Getting extremely angry every time someone cuts in while driving, even though you know it's not necessary.

A "flexible and resilient" mental state means being able to choose different coping strategies based on the situation, with the possibility of making different choices in the same context.

Therefore, a flexible and resilient mindset helps you turn life from a "single-choice question" into a "multiple-choice question," like a multi-branch game that opens up countless possibilities, allowing you to experience and enjoy life in a richer way.

So, how can we achieve "flexibility and resilience"?

Let’s first look at how a well-functioning mind operates. When an external stimulus occurs, a person typically goes through several steps from receiving the stimulus to taking action:

 

Awareness

The first step is to become aware of your immediate, primal response — a combination of emotions and physical sensations. It’s important to identify and name these feelings.

Acceptance

Allow yourself to fully accept the emotions and sensations you are experiencing. Let them exist without trying to control, change, or avoid them.

Cognitive Understanding

In your mind, try to form an understanding of your emotions and psychological state, objectively and neutrally. Ask yourself, “What’s going on with me?”

Action

Once you’ve gone through the previous steps, you naturally choose the most appropriate way to respond based on your current state and needs.

If you can do all four of these steps, congratulations! You’ve cultivated a “resilient mind” that can adapt and respond effectively to situations.

Among these four steps, the two easiest to observe and become aware of are “Cognition” and “Action.” On the other hand, the first two steps — “Awareness” and “Acceptance” — often operate unconsciously, and can be thought of as the "black box" of the mind. If you can’t see what’s inside the black box, you’ll be unclear about what’s going on internally, and may resort to blind reactions and actions. At that point, being “flexible and resilient,” or turning life into a “multiple-choice question,” becomes a distant wish.

The most problematic step tends to be “Acceptance.” When you fail to accept your emotions, you may experience an emotional overload, which becomes the major culprit in stifling flexibility. As long as your emotions are within a manageable range, you have time to observe and reflect. But once the emotional intensity exceeds your capacity to handle it, you may resort to automatic, habitual strategies to cope — strategies that operate at a subconscious level, meaning "you don’t really know what you’re doing." In such cases, you’ll end up reacting impulsively, letting fate take its course.

In real life, people’s responses to emotional overload can often be divided into two main categories: the “ants on a hot pan” type and the “head-in-the-sand” type. Let’s take a look at an example.

Imagine the following scenario:

A married couple, where the husband, M, is a high-level executive at an international corporation, and the wife, X, is a stay-at-home mom. One day, M leaves for work and accidentally leaves his phone at home. X notices this and tries to think of a way to contact him. However, as she’s about to find a solution, she sees a new WeChat notification on the phone: “Darling, I’ve arrived. Same place, Room 301.”

 

1. Hot Stove Ant Syndrome

If X has the "Hot Stove Ant Syndrome," she may be instantly overwhelmed by emotions such as shock, suspicion, jealousy, anger, and sadness, which could cause her to react impulsively. In her mind, countless thoughts rush through her head:

"He's definitely hiding something."

"It's because he thinks I'm too old."

"I should've just gone for that facelift back then. If my face didn’t have so many wrinkles, it wouldn’t be like this."

"Why did I choose him? If I had stayed with my first love, we’d be a normal couple living an ordinary life."

"How could he do this to me? Look at everything I’ve sacrificed for this family and our children, even gave up my career."

"I need to get back at him. I’ll go cause a scene at his company and ruin his reputation."

"I’ll make sure his whole family knows what he’s really like."

"Would his family try to take action against me? I need to move some of our assets to secure my future."

Driven by these thoughts, X might rush to the bank to transfer money, create chaos at M’s company, and then call her in-laws to cry about it. Whether M’s affair is real or not, X has already turned it into a "scandal caused by infidelity."

The Hot Stove Ant type often overreacts when emotions hit a peak, living every day like they're starring in a drama, which can cause both them and the people around them to feel completely overwhelmed.

2. Head-in-the-Sand Ostrich Syndrome

If X has the "Head-in-the-Sand Ostrich Syndrome," she may react in two ways:

• The first: "My husband didn’t cheat. This message was sent to the wrong person" — This is denial, where she consciously rejects the reality of the situation.
• The second: "Maybe my husband did cheat, but I don’t feel anything about it. If I ignore it, it will go away" — This is repression, where she admits the fact but avoids dealing with the emotions tied to it.

With this mindset, X might avoid taking any action or communicating directly with M. However, she could start to find M increasingly irritating, picking fights or nitpicking at every little thing.

Although the Head-in-the-Sand Ostrich type may appear calm and composed on the surface, they haven’t processed their true emotions, and sooner or later, those emotions will find an outlet. This could manifest in physical symptoms, unexplained emotional outbursts, or other strange behaviors.

Finally, I’d like to tell you: to achieve a "flexible and resilient" mental state and make life a wonderful journey with many choices, you first need to open the black box of your heart, face the truth, and then make informed decisions.

Start now by rejecting "blind living" and becoming aware of everything happening in the present moment, feeling and experiencing it, and expanding the capacity of your heart.

 

7 Signs of Psychological Health

Many clients often ask similar questions after being in a stable therapeutic relationship for a while: "Am I better now? What state should I be in to consider myself healed?" Or even after substantial progress in therapy, they might say, "I don’t think I’m better yet, therapy can’t end."

When faced with these questions, aside from considering factors like the underlying therapy dynamics and transference, I also start to think about what defines psychological health. Or in other words, at what point can therapy end?

American psychoanalyst Nancy suggests that people with healthier personalities:

• Have clear self-integration, coordinated words and actions, and a coherent and orderly inner experience.
• Have a strong sense of self-identity, clearly understanding their strengths and weaknesses, with stable temperament, habits, values, and beliefs.
• When describing important people in their lives, they are able to see both the strengths and weaknesses in others, recognizing the complex and diverse characteristics of people, where conflict and unity coexist.

Traditional psychoanalysis, in line with treatment goals, also defines psychological health through several key aspects, such as the ability to control oneself, self-recognition, appropriate levels of self-esteem, sufficient personal strength, and self-coordination.

 

 

3. Introspective Ability: Do You Have the Ability to Confront Yourself Honestly?

The key to healing psychological issues is making the unconscious conscious. Only after becoming aware of, perceiving, and understanding the suppressed and hidden parts of ourselves, buried beneath the surface, will symptoms begin to ease or disappear. This requires enough self-awareness and introspective ability, along with the courage to actively engage with the unknown by confronting known facts. A mentally healthy person does not suppress, hide, or mask negative feelings or emotions perfectly but is instead at peace with themselves.

Romain Rolland defined true heroism as continuing to love life after seeing its true nature. Similarly, when it comes to self-exploration and self-awareness, people need a kind of heroism: after seeing the primal impulses and desires deep within, they still accept themselves.

4. Sense of Autonomy: Do You Have the Ability to Free Your Inner Self?

A sense of autonomy refers to the ability to self-regulate, or an internal sense of freedom. People with a strong sense of autonomy are better able to feel free within themselves and are not controlled by depriving psychological states like depression, anxiety, fragmentation, obsession, fear, or delusions. This is a precious psychological state.

Many people often feel restricted, wanting to do something but unable to break free from low moods; wanting to protect their feelings but unable to say no to others; desiring greater freedom but involuntarily repeating certain thoughts or actions. These are all signs of a lack of autonomy.

5. Self-Identity: Do You Have the Ability to Know Who You Are and What You Want?

Self-identity is the ability to know who you are and what your role is. A healthy self-identity means being able to live according to your values, facing your emotions, attitudes, and motivations, and judging "who I am" based on your internal integrity and authenticity.

In contrast, a person who relies on external validation to experience self-identity may feel worthless after receiving a large gift from their company or see life as meaningless after a breakup. In therapy, it is crucial to experience and understand who you are, what you believe, how you feel, and what you want. This is the essential path to developing a strong and integrated sense of self-identity.

6. Appropriate Self-Esteem: Do You Have the Ability to Make a Relatively Stable Assessment of Yourself?

Self-esteem refers to a person's judgment of their own value—who they are. Healthy self-esteem is based on reality and is appropriately balanced.

Excessively high self-esteem can lead to arrogance, believing one is superior to others; whereas low self-esteem can cause self-deprecation or even self-loathing, feeling inherently flawed or guilty. On the other hand, appropriate self-esteem allows for a relatively stable self-assessment, not easily altered by external influences. A person with appropriate self-esteem is not swayed by others' treatment or opinions, nor by manipulative psychological tactics.

 

7. Emotional Maturity: Do You Have the Ability to Properly Utilize Your Emotions?

Many people equate mental health with being positive, optimistic, and full of "good energy." However, in reality, mental health emphasizes handling emotions in a proper and reasonable way.

Classic psychoanalysis defines emotional maturity as "sensitivity to emotions." Emotional maturity, or emotional intelligence (EQ), requires a person to understand their own feelings, know why they feel a certain way, and ultimately manage their emotions in ways that benefit both themselves and others.

For example, if someone is angry, the important thing isn’t to immediately release that anger or to suppress it by denying, ignoring, or acting on it. Instead, the focus should be on recognizing the emotion, understanding why it exists, and finding ways to use that emotional energy in a constructive manner.

In this case, the person is the active subject of their emotions, rather than being led by their emotions through outbursts or suppression.

8. Self-Power and Self-Coordination: Do You Have the Ability to Handle Difficulties Without Being Trapped?

Self-power refers to the ability to handle adversity calmly, processing life's challenges in a realistic and suitable way.

It’s often hard to understand why some people with excellent backgrounds and qualifications seem to fall apart when facing stress, becoming helpless, while others with average backgrounds seem to cope well with challenges. A person with strong self-power won’t collapse under excessive or irrational guilt, nor will they act impulsively or emotionally, trapping themselves in the process.

Psychological counseling aims to enhance a client’s self-power and self-coordination. Once these goals are achieved, the client can better face difficulties without being paralyzed by overwhelming or destructive internal experiences.

9. Love, Work, and Mature Dependence: Do You Have the Ability to Connect with Others and Extend Yourself?

The ultimate goal of psychological counseling is to help individuals develop the capacity for love and work. A mentally healthy person not only accepts their complex inner world and authentic self but also embraces the complexities of the outside world and others, treating people with empathy and consistency, without becoming disappointed or resistant due to personal likes or dislikes.

A person who has the capacity for love can forgive themselves for past mistakes, even if they were not understood or were uncontrollable, no matter how terrible or irreparable they seemed. Only by forgiving themselves can they understand and forgive others.

In counseling, when a client reveals their darkest, most hidden secrets, a therapist’s calm, accepting, and understanding response helps the client stop fearing intimacy and no longer expend energy trying to hide what they believe is "unacceptable" about themselves.

When a client’s hostility and aggression are uncovered and expressed, they no longer fear unintentionally hurting others. After receiving empathy and attention, they can begin to treat others with the same empathy and attention. In traditional psychoanalysis, work can help individuals express their creativity and replace feelings of helplessness and grief with problem-solving and creation. Work is viewed as a positive expression of inner conflict.

Learning to depend on others and express reasonable needs is important for everyone. Mature attachment allows people to choose good attachment figures, leave unfit ones, and have enough strength to influence others to change their behavior. Mentally healthy individuals know that it’s not their needs that are the problem, but the way they seek to meet those needs that requires adjustment.

 

 

Finally, I consider the "ability to attain pleasure and peace" as one of the most important characteristics of mental health.

Many times, bringing joy to oneself may not be as simple as we imagine. Deceptive happiness and the contentment of "finding joy in everything" are often misunderstandings of true happiness.

A person who truly knows how to bring joy to themselves will be able to recognize the internal conflicts within. After continually expressing sadness and mourning, they will let go of their infantile desires, no longer mourn what cannot be achieved, and stop clinging to fleeting pleasures, satisfaction, and virtual joy. Instead, they will gradually reach genuine peace.