- To you who are curious about the counseling room
- To you who knocked on the door of the counseling room
- To you who wants to consult but lacks the courage

Chapter 1: It's Better Than a World That Torments Me
- Story 1: Sending a signal with your own life (Looking into the mind - Borderline personality disorder)
- Story 2: I Want to Die, But… I Want to Live (Introspection - Introspection)

Chapter 2 I Want to Stop, But I Can't Do It My Way Anymore
- Story 3 I was really just going to play one more round (Looking into the Mind - Gambling Addiction)
- Story 4: Only Games Are Safe (Looking into Your Mind - Corona Blues)
- Story 5: What does it matter whether you do bad things or not (Looking into the mind - Drug addiction)

Chapter 3 My Fence Is Not Safe
- Story 6: Isn't Hell Better Than This Place? (Looking into the Mind - Child Abuse)
Story 7: Existence itself becomes a weakness (Looking into the heart - single-parent families)

Chapter 4 I Don't Know Where I Belong
- Story 8: School and home were both so frustrating (Looking into the heart - The difficulty of establishing a sense of identity)
- Story 9 I'd rather be a shadow, as long as I'm by your side (Looking into your heart - Dependent personality disorder)

Chapter 5 I Want to Believe in the World as I Imagine It
- Story 10 Everyone is watching and liking me (Looking into the mind - Delusional disorder)
- Story 11 My Friend Nobody Knows (Looking into the Mind - Epilepsy, Hallucinations)

Epilogue

Problems don't come from one person.
We live together, but the secrets and truths I keep locked away…
The unspoken reality of today's youth, revealed through eleven stories.

Children who have chosen to become islands of their own, closing their doors to the world and cutting off their connections.
The feelings they let out, the voices they couldn't utter, the wounds they couldn't suppress, remained all over the island, drawing a desolate map.
And there is someone who has decided to listen to the hearts of these children who have nowhere to put their hearts.
He heads to the children in search of a map that may be the only one in the world, or perhaps that may still be abandoned countless times somewhere in the world.
Because I want to hear, because I want to hear the story in your heart.


"Can you see my heart?" is a book that begins like this.
It is based on the records written over the past five years by 'Woogle Teacher', who majored in psychology because he likes people and became a counselor at WeClass because he likes teenagers.
Emphasizing professional ethics as a counselor, this book does not describe specific situations or limit itself to a specific subject, but rather adapts eleven stories of youth counseling cases that have been considered major social phenomena in recent years based on overlapping background factors and experiences.


Through the eleven stories in the book, the author meticulously captures how the keyword "growth," which is achieved throughout a person's life, resonates not only with adolescents but also with those around them—most importantly, their parents.
For example, a child's pain was directly connected to the parent's unhealed wounds.
The child's deficiency was often caused by the parents' excessive obsession and control.
The child's problems were not just one person's, but the worries and conflicts each child faced were confined 'alone'.


Where do those neglected hearts go? Every time I look at children with lost eyes, I feel that one person desperately needs more than one strength to live - living 'together' - and I want to gladly extend a hand.
Pain comes to everyone, and I wanted to convey the message that you are not alone in your struggles… I turned on the lights in the WeClass counseling room.


Where can I rest at school?
The 'WeClass' counseling room, open to anyone, anytime

The counseling room is literally a space where you can tell your true story to a psychological counseling expert.
You can talk about anything you want, from heavy topics like depression, anxiety, and panic attacks to fights with your best friend, the secret you stole money from your mom, and concerns about your future.
The Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea first began to concretize school counseling in 2008 with the Wee Project.
To address psychological difficulties and family difficulties such as single-parent families, and to professionally address issues such as school violence and school dropouts.

In schools, it is called Wee Class, in individual education support offices, it is called Wee Center, and in the central education office, it is called Wee School. As of 2023, there are 8,863 Wee Classes, 203 Wee Centers, and 17 Wee Schools nationwide.
There are also spaces for out-of-school youth, and the most representative one is the Youth Counseling and Welfare Center.
Most centers are easily accessible within the local area and offer free psychological counseling.


The author is a WeClass counselor working at a high school in a certain region.
Although counseling at counseling centers and counseling at schools are broadly similar, the unique characteristics of school counseling cannot be ruled out.
Since counseling is usually conducted during class time, it is difficult to provide counseling when there are performance evaluations or tests.
Counseling dates often change due to personal circumstances of the student, and may also be suddenly canceled.
There are cases where students knock on the door of WeClass and request counseling, but it is often done at the request of their homeroom teacher or parents.


Children with various difficulties come to the counseling room.
The most common counseling case is interpersonal conflict experienced during school life.
Next comes personality counseling, which includes the concerns of introverted and sensitive students, and the difficulties of children who are obsessive or anxious.
Concerns about academics, career paths, family relationships, and mental health follow.
Mental health typically involves crisis counseling, with specific topics such as self-harm and suicide attempts.
Recently, the seriousness of this trend is increasing as people are disclosing these experiences in a secret and provocative manner through social media, such as through ‘exhibiting anxiety’ and ‘sharing self-harm’, and it is becoming common among peers like a fad.


The book tells readers eleven stories over five chapters.
Chapter 1, 'Because it's better than a world where bullying me is difficult,' realistically depicts the situation of teenagers where self-harm and suicide are constant issues.
Chapter 2, “I Want to Stop, But I Can’t Do It My Way Anymore,” examines the changing youth culture and existential isolation after COVID-19 through individual cases of gambling addiction, game addiction, and drug addiction.


In Chapter 3, 'My Fence Is Not Safe', the author's camera goes deeper into the youth family (parenting environment).
In the case of 'child abuse', we meet a child enduring a hellish daily life, and in the case of 'single-parent families', we face a discriminatory reality where existence itself becomes a weakness.


Chapters 4 and 5 are stories that take a particularly close look at 'relationships'.
The book introduces cases of children who hate school, hate home, and cannot set foot comfortably anywhere in the world, who have a sense of deficiency and identity confusion, who live excessively dependent on others, who have the delusion that everyone is aware of them and paying attention to them, and who suffer from hallucinations and epilepsy that lead to the belief in beings that do not actually exist.


Yesterday has passed, and tomorrow has not yet come, so today,
Let's live today
Miraculous stories of finding your own 'light' after a time of suffering.

Because counselors across the country encounter a wide variety of cases, the author's account cannot be considered a universal guide to the reality of youth.
There are regional differences, and even within Seoul, there will certainly be differences depending on the residential area.
However, the author confesses that he picked up his pen because he felt he had to do something about the reality that the things he faced every day were no longer special, and the confusion of values ​​and psychological emptiness that children experience were increasing.


“If someone else is going through a similar experience, they can empathize with each other and experience healing.
“I have personally experienced this fact in the field, so if I share it with many people through writing, the empathy and healing power of the experience will be even more influential.” (Prologue)

The author says that when talking with children, “I realized that there wasn’t as much I had to do as I thought.”
If you just listen carefully and attentively to what the children say, they will find their own way.
So today, too, Teacher Woogle sends a signal to the hearts of the children wandering inside and outside the counseling room.
"are you okay.
Come visit anytime.
“You can tell me anything.” I hope this signal gets through to those lonely and dry hearts.