A systematic response to the key social behavior of emotional disclosure should be established. PHOTO: TUCHONG

In recent years, serious psychological distress and associated extreme incidents have become more frequent and more visible, bringing social psychological issues into public view and attracting widespread concern. From the perspective of evolving social mentality in the new era, as well as from a professional psychological standpoint, such issues cannot be understood simply as matters of mental health or medicine. More fundamentally, they reflect problems of social governance arising from the combined effects of individual psychological imbalance and the breakdown of social support. Accordingly, national policies have moved beyond a narrow health framework in emphasizing psychological services, gradually incorporating them into the broader system of social governance and the cultivation of social mentality, with a focus on preventing the accumulation and spillover of psychological risks through institutional design, environmental shaping, and cultural guidance.

In practice, China’s current psychological service system remains largely confined to professional interventions within the health domain, with insufficient attention to the social mechanisms that shape mental states—especially the lack of a systematic response to the key social behavior of “emotional disclosure.” Emotional disclosure is often treated as a secondary expression of individual emotional distress, rather than as a meaningful component of social governance. As a result, a great deal of psychological pressure in everyday life goes unexpressed or unsupported. In this sense, creating a social environment in which people feel able to speak and be heard has become a defining marker of the shift in social psychological services from a “health perspective” to a “social governance perspective.”

From health intervention to mental guidance

Where the health perspective focuses on whether psychological problems occur, the social governance perspective is more concerned with whether individuals’ mental states are consistently understood and supported. In reality, many psychological crises do not arise from mental illness or sudden events, but develop gradually through the accumulation of frustration, isolation, and a sense of powerlessness. Without timely guidance and social response at this stage, such pressures continue to internalize, eventually manifesting as more extreme behavioral risks. This suggests that the core of transforming social psychological services lies not in improving treatment, but in intervening earlier.

To shift from “health intervention” to “mental guidance,” social psychological services must extend forward, identifying a point of leverage that can function before risks become visible. Such a point must be low-threshold, easily embedded, and sustainable—capable of integrating into everyday settings, absorbing psychological pressure, buffering emotional shocks, and providing individuals with a stable base of social support. In this regard, emotional disclosure serves precisely as such a point. It is not merely an act of emotional release, but a governance mechanism that connects individuals with society. Through expression, response, and empathy, it enables individuals to regain a sense of meaning, control, and social connection before pressure escalates into crisis. At the societal level, it facilitates the early release of accumulated tensions and reduces systemic risk.

From being able to disclose to effective reception

In everyday life, however, emotional disclosure still faces a number of practical barriers if it is to occur consistently and function effectively. These barriers do not stem primarily from a lack of willingness to speak, but rather from a misalignment among cognitive habits, institutional arrangements, and practical settings.

At the cognitive level, emotional disclosure is still widely understood as a personal act of emotional catharsis or stress release, while its role as a rational coping strategy and a channel of social support remains underrecognized. Individuals may worry about “burdening others” or exposing themselves to risk, leading them to delay or suppress their need to express. At the institutional level, the norms governing emotional disclosure and expectations surrounding its outcomes remain insufficiently defined. Differences across settings in how such expression is understood and handled make it difficult for individuals to form stable and clear expectations of safety. At the practical level, emotional disclosure within the current system is often framed as a matter of principle or value advocacy, lacking stable, visible, and replicable support scenarios in everyday life. As a result, individuals rarely see concrete examples of how disclosure is received or how it produces tangible buffering effects.

Under these conditions, although emotional disclosure objectively exists, it is difficult for it to develop into a stable and widely utilized mechanism of social support. This, in turn, underscores that advancing the governance transformation of social psychological services requires not only conceptual change, but also institutional design and the construction of practical settings that lower the barriers to expression and embed it within the functioning of society.

From social advocacy to public capacity

To cultivate a stable and sustainable culture of emotional disclosure across society, a key conceptual shift is required: redefining emotional disclosure from emotional release to a rational and social capacity. From a psychological perspective, it is a means of emotional regulation, cognitive restructuring, and social connection; from a sociological perspective, it serves as a mechanism for maintaining social relationships and alleviating structural pressures; from a social governance perspective, it functions as an early warning system for risk and a safeguard for social stability.

Such a shift must be supported by institutional arrangements. One reason emotional disclosure is often difficult in practice lies in the perceived risks it entails—being labeled, held accountable, misunderstood, or facing unintended consequences. In such contexts, silence becomes a rational form of self-protection rather than indifference or avoidance. A central task for the social psychological service system, therefore, is to send a clear and consistent signal through institutional design: that emotional disclosure is permitted, protected, and free of negative repercussions. In settings such as schools, communities, enterprises, and public institutions, mechanisms for emotional disclosure should be incorporated into routine management and support systems, with clearly defined functions and procedures to prevent misinterpretation or misuse. On campuses, for instance, disclosure should not be equated with being a “problem student” or a “risk case”; in communities and workplaces, it should be integrated into broader systems of care and support, rather than treated merely as an adjunct to psychological intervention. Only when the system ensures that people can speak, are heard, and are not penalized will emotional disclosure become a widely practiced social norm.

China’s social psychological service system must move beyond its longstanding focus on professional intervention and risk management, extending toward front-end support mechanisms that are broader in coverage, lower in threshold, and more sustainable. Historically, psychological service resources have been concentrated on problem identification, risk assessment, and specialized intervention—effective for high-risk individuals, but insufficient for the larger population experiencing accumulated stress, emotional strain, and limited support. Addressing this gap requires cultivating professional capacities capable of receiving disclosure and providing front-end support in everyday social contexts, and systematically integrating such practices into the service system.

Beyond institutional guarantees, the formation of a culture of emotional disclosure depends heavily on the construction of concrete settings and the demonstration of real experiences. Value advocacy alone rarely changes behavior; what proves effective are visible, replicable, and verifiable pathways. In key social spaces such as schools and communities, low-threshold and sustainable support environments for disclosure should be established, allowing it to occur naturally when needed, rather than requiring complex appointment procedures or professional judgment. More importantly, the ongoing documentation and dissemination of real cases demonstrates how emotional disclosure helps individuals relieve pressure, avert crises, and rebuild social connections. Such narratives function not merely as publicity, but as a process of social learning. As more people witness the positive trajectory of “expression—response—resolution,” emotional disclosure will increasingly be recognized as an effective and rational coping strategy, and more widely adopted.

Overall, building a social psychological service system in which people can speak and be heard with ease is a key marker of the shift from health-oriented intervention to social governance-oriented practice. This transformation requires renewed values, strengthened institutional mechanisms, and sustained support through public settings. When emotional disclosure is understood by society as a capacity, protected by the system as a right, and validated by real cases as an effective path, it can evolve from an occasional individual act into a shared culture of social psychological support.

Zuo Bin is a professor from the Department of Psychology at Sun Yat-sen University.