Dr Lee Cheng's Mental Health Conversations

IMH senior consultant Dr Lee Cheng started penning his thoughts and observations in 2016 on mental health issues for Chinese broadsheet Shin Ming Daily's Live Well section, A Doctor Writes. To date, he has written close to 100 articles and is still inspired to keep going as the mental health landscape in Singapore constantly evolves.

Through his articles, Dr Lee hopes to introduce different mental health illnesses and its surrounding topics such as communication, gratitude, appreciation, and hope. Other than the science of mental health, he also touched on how practises in our daily living such as exercise, diet could help promote good mental health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he also delved into the psychological pressures that people often encountered living in a such unforeseen times.

Mental health can sometimes be perceived to be abstract and can come across as vague or imprecise. Thus, Dr Lee breaks down concepts into bite-sized information so that readers can understand mental health better, learn to communicate with people who may show signs of a mental illness, and encourage them to seek treatment.

He also advocates against stigmatising mental health conditions and explains the importance of early treatment for better outcomes and support for individuals to help them address challenges and build mental resilience.

He compiled his first 44 articles into a book titled, “Talking About Mental Health", with another compilation of the next 44 articles published from 2019 through 2023 in this book, “Clarifying Mental Health Matters".

心理卫生学院高级顾问李郑博士于 2016 年开始在我国中文日纸《新明日报》的《活得好》版面的《名医亲笔》中撰写他对心理健康问题的想法和观察。

迄今为止，李博士已撰写了近 100 篇文章，并且随着新加坡心理健康状况的不断发展，他仍然受到激励继续写下去。

李博士希望通过他的文章能介绍不同的心理健康疾病及其相关主题，例如沟通、感恩、珍惜和如何怀着希望。除了心理健康科学之外，他还谈到了我们日常生活中如运动、饮食等如何有助于促进良好的心理健康。在COVID-19大流行期间，他还深入研究了生活在这种不可预见的时期人们经常遇到的心理压力。

心理健康有时会被认为是抽象的，并且可能会显得模糊或不精确。因此，李博士将概念分解为小块的信息，以便读者可以更深入了解好心理健康，学会与可能出现精神疾病迹象的人沟通，并鼓励他们寻求治疗。

他还主张反对对心理健康状况的污名化，并解释了早期治疗对于获得更好结果的重要性，以及为个人提供支持以帮助他们应对挑战和建立心理弹性的重要性。他将自己的前 44 篇文章汇编成一本名为《清谈心理健康》的书，并将 2019 年至 2023 年出版的接下来的 44 篇文章汇编成书《厘清心理健康》。