The Guidance Room
I sat down with Mr. Oliver Mu, my school's primary mental health counselor, to discuss the mental health challenges of adolescence and the ways of coping. A polished transcript translated into English from an interview conducted in Chinese is presented, and mentions specific to the school have been removed for privacy reasons.
Parts of the conversation are dependent on the context of my school: a K-12 rural boarding school in China that is known to be academically rigorous. However, the struggles of the students and the psychological perspectives discussed are not in any way confined to this school alone. Parents and adolescents from a wide variety of backgrounds may relate to the conversation and find insightful advice.
Published with consent.
Interviewer: From your experience, when students proactively come to you to talk about their problems, what kinds of concerns do they usually bring up? For example, academic pressure or family relationships?
Mr. Mu: It varies by age group. For middle school students, interpersonal relationships are by far the most common topic. I think that may partly be related to the fact that we are a boarding school. Students are just entering adolescence, and they are spending a lot of time interacting with their peers. At the same time, their self-awareness is developing rapidly, so everyone is becoming more conscious of themselves and their own perspectives. Naturally, there are many points of conflict. Their values and worldviews are also still developing, so they experience a lot of difficulties in their relationships with others.
The second most common issue is academic pressure. For high school students, academic pressure is probably the most common concern, while for middle school students, it ranks second.
After that comes family relationships, which would probably rank third at our school for both middle and high school students. Among high school students, academic pressure comes first, often accompanied by emotional difficulties or sleep problems. Interpersonal relationships come next, followed by family relationships.
When students come to see you, is there usually a specific event that has happened, and they come to you because they want help solving the problem? Or do they sometimes just want someone to complain to?
Looking back, I would say that most of the time, something has happened that triggers an emotional breakdown or leaves the student feeling extremely distressed.
There may be a specific trigger. For example, they might receive a test grade that is much lower than expected. Maybe they have fallen out with a friend, or they discover that someone has been saying negative things about them behind their back.
There is usually some concrete event, but the common factor is what happens afterward. The event produces an overwhelming emotional response, and the student feels unable to cope with those emotions on their own, so they seek help.
There is a general model of stress coping. At the first level, people initially try to use their own resources to cope. They first try to solve the problem itself if it is something they can change. If they cannot solve it directly, they may draw on internal resources for cognitive adjustment or emotional regulation. If that still is not enough, they may seek support.
That support could come from friends, parents, teachers, or a school counselor.
Are there any issues that are more common among students than people might expect? Or are there problems that students tend to hide from others?
Could you elaborate a little more on what you mean?
I mean, are there problems that people generally would not expect students to experience so frequently, but that are actually quite common?
So you're asking whether there are issues that students may not recognize as problems themselves, but that actually have a significant impact on their mental and physical well-being?
I think there are. In a more abstract sense, I would say one of them is the system through which students derive their sense of value.
Many students at our school have a very narrow source of self-worth: academic achievement and comparison with others. For example, they may think, “I need to get a high score. I need to do better than my peers.” When they achieve those things, or when they perform better than someone else, they feel valuable.
But if they perform poorly on even one test, or get a score below their expectations, they may feel as if the whole world is falling apart.
I think the underlying issue is that their source of self-worth is too narrow. It is fragile because it depends almost entirely on achievement. The belief becomes, “I only have value if I achieve something.”
I feel that this is particularly common among high school students, but many students do not recognize it as a problem. In this environment, if you want to survive or succeed within the system, you have to learn to play by these rules and compete for the top positions.
But over time, I think we gradually become conditioned to this system. Once you become accustomed to it, you may start trying to obtain a sense of worth through comparison in every aspect of your life.
There will always be someone who is better than you at something. So you can end up permanently feeling, “I am not good enough. I need to work harder. I need to achieve more.”
I also think this reflects a broader phenomenon in East Asian culture. People can find it very difficult to simply be happy with themselves.
I feel that most people already know, intellectually, that grades are not the only source of self-worth. But it seems that many people around me have become so accustomed to comparing themselves with others that even when they recognize the problem, they still feel unable to control it.
Exactly. Many people's thoughts and emotions are not simply individual experiences. They are connected to the broader social environment.
Especially when the economy is struggling and the overall social environment becomes more uncertain, some of that pressure is transferred to families. Parents may first experience it themselves—for example, earning money becomes more difficult or running a business becomes harder. Then, in different ways, that pressure is passed on to their children.
On top of that, we are in a competitive and academically demanding school. There are constant exams.
One advantage is that these frequent assessments allow students to check their understanding of the material and receive immediate feedback. For some students, that immediate feedback can actually motivate them.
But when someone remains in that environment for a long time, they begin adapting themselves to what the environment expects of them. And the environment is not just the school. It includes society, family, and the people around them, especially their peers.
Sometimes the environment becomes like a net. You may recognize something is wrong on an individual level, but once you enter that environment, you do not want to be the person who falls behind. You have already entered the game, and it can feel as though you are forced to keep playing by its rules.
So people often don't fully recognize that this is happening?
I think their awareness often stays at a very superficial level. They know, logically, that academics are not the only important thing in life, but that understanding may only exist at the first level.
They may not genuinely believe it when it comes to making choices. For example, suppose they had to choose between rehearsing with their band and studying for a test. I believe 95% of students would choose the test.
That shows that they do not truly believe grades are only one part of their lives. They simply know that it sounds better to say that.
When the two things actually come into conflict, most students will still choose grades or achievement. Achievement has become far too powerful.
When you talk with students who are struggling, do you think there is something that many of them want others to understand about them, but that their parents or teachers often fail to understand?
Yes, there are quite a lot of things. One of the most common, especially among secondary school students, is that they want their feelings to be heard and acknowledged, but their parents respond primarily with logic.
A student may say, “I am really struggling. I am already trying so hard. I feel terrible.” And the parent may respond, “You're not working hard enough.”
There is a group of students, especially those who are more emotionally sensitive, who really want their feelings to be seen. But adults in this environment sometimes have difficulty recognizing those feelings.
Some teachers are able to see them, but many teachers still communicate with students primarily through the lens of academic performance.
Among peers, another very common issue is gossip—finding out that someone has been talking badly about you behind your back or betraying your trust. These experiences can cause students a great deal of emotional pain.
For students experiencing psychological or emotional difficulties, do you think they need teachers to give them concrete advice, or do they mainly need someone to listen while they vent?
I don't think it is an either-or question. They want both.
Ultimately, they want the problem to be solved. But as school counselors, we are not always the people who directly solve the problem.
Psychological counseling is often more about looking beneath the immediate problem: empathizing with the student's emotions, understanding the patterns that have developed around that problem, and helping the student see themselves more clearly.
Sometimes we can provide what is called a corrective relational or emotional experience. For example, a student may tell their parents that they are struggling and be met with criticism or misunderstanding. In counseling, we can provide a different kind of relationship—one that is supportive and empathetic.
The student can then experience, “Oh, I actually can be understood. There is someone who understands me.”
When someone feels understood, their emotions can begin to flow more freely, and they may feel a little better.
That process does not necessarily solve the immediate problem. For example, if a student performed poorly on an exam, they still performed poorly. But they may have a little more emotional space to deal with what happened.
Of course, students still want concrete outcomes. They may want to improve their grade next time, or repair a damaged friendship. Just as we discussed in the stress-coping model, the first step is usually to try to solve the actual problem. When that is not possible, the next step is to adjust one's thoughts and emotions so that one can continue coping with the situation.
What should someone do to regulate their emotions when a problem cannot actually be solved?
This is a very broad question. But if I had to give a general answer, I would say: have the courage to change what you can change, accept what you cannot change, and have the wisdom to distinguish between the two.
If something is within your control, have the courage to take action. If something truly cannot be changed, you need to learn to accept the outcome and learn to coexist with the emotions you do not like.
The key is having the wisdom to distinguish between what you can change and what you cannot.
Beyond that, there are many specific emotional coping strategies, and what works depends on the individual and their circumstances.
At a broad level, one especially effective factor is social support. When someone has a strong enough support system, a temporary period of emotional distress is less likely to develop into a more serious mental-health disorder.
The second factor is a person's own cognition and, more specifically, their relationship with themselves. When something goes wrong, do they think, “The whole world is falling apart. I'm the worst. I'm terrible”? That reflects the person's relationship with themselves.
And at the bottom of the triangle are basic physiological needs. Are they eating properly? Are they sleeping properly? Are they exercising?
If someone is eating well, sleeping well, and exercising regularly, their overall state is unlikely to deteriorate too far. These things form the foundation of physical and mental well-being.
Sometimes, when a child is in a very poor state, I tell them, “Don't worry about anything else for now. Just eat properly, sleep properly, and exercise. “ Once those three things are in place, it is important to start building social connections.
Those things can help prevent someone from falling into a very severe state.
I think a lot of students—including people around me—feel that sacrificing those basic physical needs is worth it if it allows them to get better grades. But sometimes their condition gets worse and their grades don't even improve, so it becomes a vicious cycle.
Exactly. The three things I mentioned—eating, sleeping, and exercising—help keep the body functioning properly.
Young people have a very strong capacity to recover. For example, I might stay up late one night and still perform well on a test the next day. But I have paid a cost; it just doesn't immediately show up in my body or emotions.
Then maybe there is another exam the next day, so I stay up late again. Even after doing that twice, I may still feel fine. But when this happens repeatedly, you eventually disrupt your body's basic functioning.
Suddenly, one day, you feel as though you cannot hold your emotions together anymore, or your body breaks down. Only then do you realize that you have entered a vicious cycle.
But then there is another exam tomorrow. Your poor physical and emotional state reduces your study efficiency, and you think, “My efficiency is worse, so I need to stay up even later tonight to make up for everything I missed.”
And gradually, the cycle becomes worse.
I know how difficult this is in the moment. For students, the problem is that urgent and important things tend to take priority. Your health is important, but it does not feel urgent. So you naturally prioritize the thing that feels more urgent.
My suggestion is to establish a personal red line—a kind of circuit breaker or emergency protection mechanism.
When you reach a certain point where your physical or emotional state has deteriorated too far, that red line must activate your protective mechanism. At that point, you have to take care of your basic health first. Once you have recovered, then you can return to your academics.
Before reaching that point, it is okay to prioritize something particularly urgent, such as an exam. But once you reach the red line, that protection mechanism is the final safeguard that protects you, and you have to respect it.
My last question is about representation. Are there behaviors or ways of speaking that people commonly assume teenagers with mental-health problems have, but that are actually inaccurate or based on stereotypes?
Are you asking about stereotypes that other people have about individuals experiencing psychological difficulties, or stereotypes that people experiencing those difficulties may themselves have about their own emotions?
Stereotypes held by outsiders—what people assume someone with psychological difficulties will be like.
People may simply fail to take someone's mental health seriously. Parents may say things like, “You're not strong enough,” or “You're too sensitive,” or “Why are you crying over this?”
I think this is actually very common. People may fail to treat the problem as something real and instead approach it through a purely logical or adult perspective, as though the solution is simply to cover it up or ignore it.
I feel like I’ve seen this among people around me as well—the fact that parents or other adults may not understand why someone is experiencing these emotions.
Personally, when my friends come to me and tell me about their problems, I often don't know how to respond. I want to make them feel supported, but I'm not sure how to make them feel more comfortable.
I think this goes back to our education system and, more broadly, the way mainstream education trains us.
We place a great deal of emphasis on what you might call the “left-brain” side of thinking—logic, problem-solving, doing exercises, solving questions, and so on. That part of our education is very strong.
So when someone comes to us with a problem, our first instinct may be to activate that part of ourselves and think, “How can I solve this person's problem?”
But emotions are invisible and intangible. They are not like physical pain. If your body hurts, you can point to a bump or a pimple and say, “There is the problem.” Emotions are not that concrete.
So people may instinctively think, “If I don't pay attention to this feeling, maybe it will disappear,” or something similar.
I think the first thing you can do is simply become a listener and empathize with the person.
I really like one metaphor for empathy: empathy means putting on another person's shoes, entering their world, walking around in it with them, and making no judgment.
I think that if you can do this—if you can put on the shoes of someone who is vulnerable or emotionally overwhelmed and enter their world without judging what they are experiencing—you are already providing tremendous support.
I personally practice a person-centered approach to counseling. It has three core conditions that help create an environment where people feel understood.
The first is congruence, or genuineness. When you are talking or listening to someone, you should be genuine and authentic. You should not pretend to be deeply interested when you actually are not. People can sense that.
The second is unconditional positive regard. This means that you genuinely care about the person and care about what they are feeling. It is an attitude of warmth and respect.
The third is empathic understanding—the idea I described earlier of putting on the other person's shoes, entering their world, and experiencing what they are experiencing without judgment.
So the first step is to avoid immediately feeling that you have to solve their problem?
I think it depends on the person. Different roles call for different responses.
For example, if you are a friend and someone says, “Could you help me with this?” and you know you can genuinely help, and doing so will solve the problem without causing other consequences, then there is nothing wrong with giving them advice or directly helping them.
I'm worried that the other person might not actually want me to try to solve the problem. For example, they might come to me to talk about something that is bothering them, and I might immediately start giving them advice.
That depends on the individual. Some people like that, and some don't. You can use your understanding of their personality as a guide.
But if you're uncertain, it is safer to hold back at first. Don't immediately rush to offer your own solutions. Instead, keep the focus on them and empathize with what they are experiencing.
In counseling, there is a technique called reflection, and I think it is a seriously underrated conversational skill.
For example, if you tell me, “Teacher, I did terribly on my exam today. I feel like my whole world is falling apart,” I don't necessarily have to do anything else. I can simply reflect back, “Your whole world feels like it is falling apart.”
Just repeating that sentence can make someone feel heard. They may think, “Oh, you really listened to what I said.” Hearing your own words reflected back to you can make you recognize your own experience more clearly: “Yes, I really do feel like I'm falling apart.”
It sounds very simple, but it can feel very different to someone who is actually experiencing that emotion.
So, when you're uncertain, you don't have to immediately share your own thoughts or give advice. You can simply listen and reflect what they are saying.
If they genuinely want your advice, they will often give you signals. They might say, “What do you think I should do?” That is an invitation. At that point, you can offer your thoughts.