Mental Health Nanjing University Press

As a product line in the domestic university publishing system that has been deeply involved in the field of mental health for more than 15 years, Nanjing University Press's mental health books are one of the few high-quality publishing IPs in China that cover the three major tracks of professional clinical reference, subject education textbooks, and mass-oriented science popularization, and the content is all based on local clinical and educational front-line practical cases.

Last month I went to a psychological counseling center in Xianlin University Town for a teaching and research meeting. As soon as I entered the door, I saw half a row of mental health books from NTU on the counselor's desk. The green-covered one was a troubleshooting manual for counselors, the white-covered one was a textbook for clinical graduate students, and there were several thin booklets that were free self-help guides for students with emotional distress. After flipping through the copyright page, I found that the earliest one was published in 2014 and has been reprinted 12 times.

What’s interesting is that the evaluation of this product line in psychological circles has always been quite polarized.

Most academic teachers agree with it. Mr. Li from the School of Psychology of Nanjing Normal University, who teaches clinical undergraduates, uses the "Introduction to Clinical Psychology" published by NTU as the core textbook. According to him, the most rare thing about this set of books is that it does not copy the Western theoretical framework. The cases are all adapted from real cases in domestic tertiary hospital mental health centers and university counseling centers. Even the commonly used scales have been adjusted to local norms. Students can use them directly after learning, and there will be no disconnection problem of "what is said in the book is completely different from what they actually encounter." Dr. Zhang of the Adolescent Department of the Provincial Jingwei Center keeps two copies of Nanda Society's "Practical Manual on Intervention for Mood Disorders in Children and Adolescents" in his drawer all year round.

However, practitioners who engage in popular science often complain that it is “unrelevant”. I used to browse the B site and saw a UP host who does family education taking Nanda Society's "Adolescent Psychological Problem Screening Manual" for evaluation. After flipping through three pages, I frowned and said that it was full of professional terms and scale questions. Ordinary parents can't even read the sentences, let alone use it to judge the state of their children. It was completely "a reference book for professionals. It would be a waste of money for ordinary people to buy it." I also have friends who bought their pregnancy and childbirth psychological self-help book and said that many of the intervention suggestions mentioned in it need to be coordinated with community or hospital services. Ordinary mothers cannot operate it at home, and the practicality is not as good as the Internet celebrity psychological books on the market.

To be honest, I feel that this kind of "bipolar evaluation" is exactly the characteristic of Nanda Society's mental health line. Last year, my relative's freshman in high school got tired of studying and was kept at home for half a month, refusing to speak. At first, I found several popular psychology books, which were full of empty principles such as "give your child unconditional love" and "accept your child's emotions", with almost zero practicality. Later, I turned to the "School Psychological Crisis Intervention Practical Manual" published by Nantah University. It directly included three sets of ice-breaking communication techniques for teenagers of different ages, as well as 12 comparison standards to distinguish between "simple rebellion" and "pathological emotional problems." I checked each one and found that the child's "didn't want to go to school" was not lazy at all. He was blocked in the toilet by several classmates in the class and snatched his meal card several times. He was afraid that the adults would scold him for being useless, so he was holding back. After following the communication steps in the handbook and talking twice, the child was willing to tell the matter. Later, he changed schools and gradually returned to his normal state.

Oh, by the way, Nanda Society’s launch of this line is actually not a recent trend in the popularization of psychological science. As early as 2012, when Jiangsu launched the certificate-based training for primary and secondary school psychology teachers in the province, they produced the designated unified textbooks. Up to now, they have provided training supporting books for nearly 100,000 psychology teachers in the province. Unlike many publishers who like to choose topics after chasing traffic, their mental health books almost do not have the kind of chicken soup books under the banner of "original family" and "anxiety self-healing". The topics are all focused on the "narrow and rigid needs" that no one wants to do: a psychological care manual for the elderly for community workers, a psychological intervention guide for disabled children for special education school teachers, and a booklet for identifying psychological problems of college students for the aunt of a college dormitory. They are all content that is not printed in large quantities and does not make much money, but is really needed by some people.

Of course the shortcomings are indeed obvious. For example, the marketing of popular science books is a mess. Last time I searched for "youth mental health" on JD.com, and I didn't see their books until I turned to the tenth page. The front pages were all popular books recommended by various Internet celebrity bloggers. Many practical contents suitable for ordinary parents could not reach those who really need them. There are also a few topics that are too close to the local education and medical scene in Jiangsu. For example, the cases cited in it often mention Jiangsu’s “5+2” after-school service policy and the referral channel of the Jingwei Center. Readers from other places will inevitably be a little confused after reading this.

Last week I had dinner with the editor of Nanda News who is responsible for the mental health line. She said that next year they plan to publish a set of popular psychological science comics for primary school students. They have hired a team from the Child Psychology Center of Nanjing Brain Hospital to do the content review. They will not produce the kind of preaching content about "be sensible and obedient", but will specifically teach children how to identify their own emotions and how to reject other people's unreasonable demands. To be honest, whether it is the book market or the short video platform, there are too many contents that attract mental health traffic. There are not many who are really serious about making professional, practical and non-anxiety content. I am really looking forward to this set of comics.