我们通常是这么描述如何解决问题的过程：你有一个问题，你找到解决问题的方法，然后问题就没了。在数学中，这似乎是显而易见的。比如说想要找出两条线的交点，这有多难？但在社会科学中，这是一个非常容易出问题的方法，因为我们很难识别一个真正的问题，而且我们经常听到的一些问题实际上根本不是问题。

我想我的观点已经很清楚了。但是假设你确实发现了一个问题，你想找到一个解决办法，你如何确保这个办法不会产生更多问题，或者不会使它试图解决的问题变得更糟？

以我个人为例，我跑步的时候总是感到鼻塞，有一天我想我应该用点药，希望它能帮助我缓解鼻塞的不适。如果你在国庆假期前见到我，你可能会注意到我已经使用鼻腔喷雾剂有一段时间了。事实证明，这种药物是通过刺激受体和收缩鼻腔内的血管来起作用，这就是为什么它能立即见效。但如果没有适当的指导，这种药物的副作用是让你越来越依赖它，最终加剧你的鼻腔炎症，所以我已经有一段时间没有用它了。

心理健康问题类似于这些容易出问题的解决方法，主要是因为我们对任何压力情况的本能反应都是避免问题的本质。著名的临床心理学家乔丹·彼得森有一个绝妙的比喻来描述与这种反应相反的做法：“杀死我们内心的恶龙”。试想一个男孩在他的房间里发现了一条龙，而他的家人都不愿意承认它的存在，这条龙开始慢慢变大。最终，龙长到了房间那么大，他的家人才被迫承认龙的存在。当他们承认龙存在时，它开始缩小，直到最终变成小猫咪那么大。这个比喻中的龙可能指代任何事物，如破裂的关系、不安全感或官僚主义。但这个故事暗含的警示要具体得多：我们应该正视我们盲目信仰中的矛盾，而不是忽视它们。当你忽视它们的时候，矛盾就开始积累了。例如，你可能为自己设定了一个目标，但没有实现，你可能会问自己：“为什么我没有实现这个目标？”这真的没有问对问题，因为你没有实现目标这件事应该说明你的行动（即你之前的解决方法）无法解决眼前的问题。你可能想考更高的分数，却把大部分时间花在玩游戏上。所以你真正应该问的是：“为什么我的行动与我的目标不一致，我能做些什么呢？”

这就引出了下一个问题，我们应该如何真正杀死自己内心的恶龙？

有时，我们面临的问题不是我们故意对一切视而不见，而是我们过于关注对当前问题非常模糊抽象的理解上。事实上，我们可能太过关注，以至于我们对其反复思考。如果我们没能达成一个目标，我们可能会陷入这样的困境：我们认为做什么都无法让自己感觉好点。例如，在被拒绝时，一个人可能会说：“我再也找不到真爱了”。关键在于我们应该考虑实际情况，而不是泛泛而论。更简单地说，我们应该从一个具体客观的角度来思考心理健康问题，而不是从抽象扭曲的视角去看。

The concept of problem-solving is generally portrayed in the following manner: you have a problem, and you have a solution to that problem, and the problem vanishes. In mathematics, this may seem pretty self-evident. How hard is it, say, to find an intersection between two lines? But in the social sciences this is an incredibly problematic technique, because, for starters, it’s very hard to identify a real problem, and some of the problems that we’ve heard of so often aren’t actually problems at all.  

Many intellectuals in the field of education or psychology would ask questions like: “Why are people anxious?” Well people are anxious for so many reasons! We’re generally anxious about our future decisions; we’re anxious about our money and talent, both of which are finite resources; we’re anxious over people who we like but may or may not like us back. Anxiety is so inherent in existence that any brief moment of calmness would seem totally unreal. Narcotics can enhance the secretion of serotonin and dopamine to unimaginable levels that it’s a miracle that we aren’t injecting ourselves to death. The real question, perhaps, is “how are we capable of restraint and self-discipline?”. Academics have also raised questions like “Why is there violence in the world?” With the war going on between Ukraine and Russia we might remark that we are currently living in a violent era. But that really goes to show how ignorant we our of our own anthropological history; virtually every history book can testify to how human beings are extremely violent creatures. Around a millennium ago the kingdoms of England and France fought a bloody conflict that lasted for a hundred years. And although there were much more lethal conflicts like the world wars, the frequency of violent incidents has exponentially decreased across the centuries to an extent that we should really ask ourselves “How are we capable of assembling peacefully at all?”

许多教育或心理学领域的知识分子会问这样的问题：“人们为什么焦虑？”焦虑的原因有很多。我们通常会对未来的决定感到焦虑；我们担心自己拥有的金钱和才能，这两者都是有限的资源；我们担心自己喜欢的人会不会喜欢我们。焦虑是与生俱来的，以至于任何短暂的平静都似乎不太真实。“人为什么吸毒？”那为什么人不应该吸毒呢？毒品可以使血清素和多巴胺的分泌增加到难以想象的水平。但真正的问题或许是“我们如何能够做到克制和自律？”学者们也提出了诸如“世界上为什么会有暴力”的问题。随着乌克兰和俄罗斯之间的战争在继续，我们可能会注意到，我们目前生活在一个动荡的时代。但这确实表明我们对自己的人类学历史是多么的无知；几乎每本历史书都能证明人类是极其暴力的生物。大约一千年前，英法两国进行了一场持续了一百年的血腥冲突。虽然有很多像世界大战那样的致命冲突，但暴力事件的频率在几个世纪以来呈指数级下降，所以我们真正应该问的是“我们怎样才能够和平集会？”

By now I think I’ve made my point clear. But let’s say that you did find a problem and you want to find a solution for it, how would you ensure that the solution doesn’t generate more problems or worsen the very problem it once tried to solve?  

As a personal example, I’ve always felt this stuffiness in my nose when I run, and one day I figured that I ought to use some medicine so that hopefully I feel better, and if you’ve been around me before golden week you might have noticed that I’ve been using this nasal spray for a while. It turns out that this medication works by stimulating receptors and constricting the blood vessels in your nose, which is why it works instantaneously. But without proper guidance, the side effect is that you become increasingly reliant on this medication and it eventually starts to exacerbate your nasal inflammation, which is why I haven’t used it in a while.  

Mental health issues closely resemble these problematic techniques mainly because our instinctive reaction to any stressful situation is to avoid the essence of the problem. Jordan Peterson, a famous Clinical psychologist had an excellent metaphor for an attempt to do otherwise. He characterized it as: “the slaying of the dragon within us.” Consider a boy who discovers a dragon in his house; since none of his family members are willing to acknowledge its existence, it begins to grow. Eventually, it fills the entire house and his family is compelled to acknowledge the existence of the dragon. When they do, it begins to shrink, and by the end of the tale, it’s kitten sized. The metaphor of the dragon could mean anything, it could be a broken relationship, an insecurity, a bureaucracy. But the underlying caveat of the story is much more specific: we should really confront the contradictions in our blind faith instead of ignoring them. What happens when you do ignore them is that contradictions begin to accumulate. For example, you might set a goal for yourself and fail to achieve it and you might ask yourself: “Why haven’t I achieved this goal?” This really isn’t the right question because the fact that you haven’t achieved it should serve as a telling indicator that your actions, (i.e. your previous solution) couldn’t solve the problem at hand. You could aim for higher test scores but spend most of your time playing games. So the real question that should be raised is: “Why are my actions misaligned with my objectives, and what can I do about it?”  

This brings us to the next question, how should we properly slay the dragon within us?  

这就引出了下一个问题，我们应该如何真正杀死自己内心的恶龙？

Sometimes, the problem we face isn’t that we’re willfully blind to everything, but that we’re too attentive to a very vague abstraction about our current problems. In fact, we might be so attentive that we ruminate over it repetitively. If we failed to achieve an objective, we might fall into the trap of convincing ourselves that there is nothing we can do to feel better. For example, in response to being rejected, a person might react by saying “I will never find true love again.” The point is that we should consider the actual circumstances instead of resorting to broad generalizations. More succinctly, we should consider our mental health issues through a concrete and objective lens rather than an abstract and distorted one.