Mental Health Nanjing University Press

If you are looking for mental health readings, teaching materials or professional reference tools that combine academic rigor, local adaptability and practical guidance, Nanjing University Press’s related product lines are currently one of the priority choices for domestic non-professional readers, college course preparation, and front-line practitioners’ desk backup.

To be honest, I came to this conclusion not as an advertisement, but because I helped a higher vocational psychology teaching and research office select textbooks for freshmen general courses last year. I flipped through nearly 12 sample books from different publishers and stepped on several pitfalls before I figured out the ropes. For example, some textbooks directly copy cases from Europe and the United States ten years ago. The sources of stress for college students mentioned in them are "failure to apply for the Ivy League" and "social troubles in fraternities". They are completely incompatible with our students' daily worries about CET-4 and CET-6, postgraduate entrance examinations, public exams, and dormitory work and rest conflicts. Students don't even lower their heads to check their mobile phones in class. I am willing to read it; some are even more outrageous. The whole book is preaching "You have to be optimistic" and "You have to be open-minded", without even a basic step of emotional adjustment. I almost chose to doubt life at the time. It was not until I read the 2023 edition of "Mental Health Education for College Students" by Nanda Society that I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The "dormitory relationship mediation" module in that book comes with three real adaptation cases from domestic universities, as well as the corresponding communication skills for three different scenarios. I used it once in class last year. After class, a girl came to me and said that I followed the skills to talk to my roommate who stayed up late playing games, and finally I no longer need to wear earplugs to sleep every day. And the most rare thing about their professional tool books is the new norm. The "Adolescent Mental Health Assessment Manual" that I commonly use for community youth psychological screening. The norm in it was re-tested in conjunction with the Jingwei Center in 8 provinces across the country from 2019 to 2021. It is much more reliable than many tools that are still using the norm before 2010. Last time There was a boy in the second grade of junior high school whose score was just stuck at the critical value. I talked for 20 minutes according to the localized interview outline attached in the book, and found out that he was secretly anxious because his grandma had recently been diagnosed with high blood pressure and his parents were working outside the home without anyone to take care of him. If I had used the previous interview outline that copied the European and American context, he might have been directly classified as "adolescent rebellion" and missed.

Of course, this does not mean that their books are suitable for everyone. A friend of mine who is a counselor with a psychoanalytic orientation complains that the content of dynamic therapy in NTU’s professional books does not account for a high proportion. Most of them are related to cognitive behavior and humanism, which are mainstream in college teaching. If you want to find a monograph on psychoanalysis, there is really not much space to choose from. Readers who are looking for self-help books for the general public will also find it unfriendly. They rarely produce popular books that talk about "original family determines everything" and "how to achieve an intimate relationship". Most of them are geared towards teaching or professional entry-level books. If you just want to flip through two pages to relieve your emo, it may be more suitable to choose popular books from other companies.

I have talked with the editors of Nanda Publishing House before. They rarely pursue hot topics when it comes to mental health books. In the past few years, when "emotional value" and "relaxation" were popular, many publishing houses rushed out three to five months to publish a popular book. They actually spent two years writing a "Family Mental Health Guidance Manual". The author They are all front-line counselors from the NTU Psychological Center and clinicians from the Jiangsu Provincial Jingwei Center. They even have very specific procedures for very specific problems such as "What to do if a child is anxious before starting school" and "How to comfort an elderly person who is depressed after retirement." There are no extreme views. I often recommend this when I give parent lectures to the community.

Of course, there are also shortcomings. Many students have reported to me that some of their professional textbooks are densely typed and have small font sizes, making it easy for non-professional readers to get tired of reading. There are also many supporting teaching courseware and scale tools that need to be applied separately from the publisher. Unlike some publishers that directly print a QR code on the back of the book and scan it to get it, it is indeed a bit troublesome for novice teachers.

Last time I attended an industry salon at Nanjing University, I heard from their editor that this year they planned to publish a set of pocket books on psychological intervention for middle and high school teachers. The book is small enough to fit into the pocket of a work uniform. When students are upset or have conflicts, they can easily turn to the corresponding coping methods. I was quite looking forward to it. After all, many classroom teachers nowadays have not received systematic psychological training and often don’t know how to deal with problems. This kind of down-to-earth practical book can really help people.