What is MHFA?
MHFA, the full name of which is mental health first aid, is an internationally recognized training program dedicated to enabling ordinary people to identify, understand and deal with those who are in mental health crisis. The course may be different in each region, but it helps participants to better understand and apply MHFA skills through course discussions and scenario reappearance activities. The content of the course includes the self-care of helpers, the common pattern of ALGEE, and how to identify and deal with psychological crises in different degrees or situations (including but not limited to panic attacks, anxiety, depression, trauma, mental illness and suicide).
Why do you want to take this course?
Psychological crisis can be prevented. Like physical diseases, our psychological problems are just mental diseases. Early prevention, early detection and early treatment will cure psychological problems, and the more serious it is, the more difficult it is to recover.
Many trapped people are not good at asking for help, have no sense of asking for help, and are ashamed to express their plight. Even if you summon up the courage to make others understand you, the person you are talking to will not know how to deal with it correctly, and lose the opportunity to help the trapped person, and even cause secondary harm to the trapped person.
Common dialogue: "I'm unhappy"-"Have you finished your homework? It's no use thinking about writing every day. "Just play a game." "Why are you unhappy when the weather is so good?" Tomorrow will be fine. Be strong. You'll be fine. Unfortunately, these common conversations in daily life are not reasonable answers to help the trapped people.
How to help the trapped reasonably?
MHFA proposed a quick and simple method, algie.
A: Assess the risk of suicide or injury, ask about the situation and express your willingness to help.
Listen without judgment, listen carefully without judgment
G: Give reasons, and the information will be given back through open-ended questions.
E: Encourage them to seek professional help.
E: Encourage self-help and other support strategies, and encourage them to seek self-help and other support methods.
Everyone wants to be seen, heard, cared for and loved. Similarly, it is also important to express your concern for the trapped people reasonably. According to the above principles, we can change the above dialogue to "I'm unhappy"-"What's bothering you? Can you talk to me? " "Shall we go to a quiet place and talk it over?" Although it is a little difficult for me to understand why you are unhappy, I can feel that you are really having a hard time, and I will support you by your side. The seemingly simple answer can bring some light to people trapped in the dark. In the process of dialogue, listen carefully to the voices of the trapped people and build a bridge of mutual trust without prejudging, assuming or implying. If the trapped people have serious problems, they need to be encouraged to seek professional help, including but not limited to consultants, doctors, social workers, and even call the psychological emergency hotline.
How to discover the potential psychological crisis?
For some trapped people, they are unwilling to pour out their feelings, and even more unwilling to take the first step to seek help. At this time, the role of the helper is like the first aid in the swimming pool, which can judge whether the trapped person is struggling after falling into the water and give assistance.
MHFA has two aspects: signs and symptoms, external behavior and appearance, and internal emotions and thoughts.
Behavior: There are regulations such as being late or canceling important meetings.
Appearance: reduced cleanliness, etc
Emotion: no enthusiasm, sadness, anxiety about work, etc.
Thought: unable to concentrate, unable to make decisions, etc.
According to the degree of psychological crisis, the external and internal manifestations are different.
abstract
Although these years' psychological science popularization has made people's mental health awareness stronger and stronger, it has also attracted more attention from the society, but mental health is still stigmatized and tragedies are still recurring around us. These tragedies could have been avoided. If someone around them knows "mental health first aid", they can identify their symptoms and intervene in time, just like cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) does to the body. MHFA has just started in China. I hope more and more people will participate and help more people.