Abstract: Constructing the independent knowledge system of mental health science is of fundamental significance in China,while promoting and developing it is the essential pathway.This endeavor is a necessary response to national strategic needs,a solution to practical challenges,a breakthrough for developmental bottlenecks,and a means to enhance cultural confidence and discourse power.It is crucial to clarify its core characteristics—subjectivity and originality,indigenization and openness,systematicness and developmental orientation.Equally important is to define its short-term and long-term goals,along with its major tasks of theoretical innovation,methodological innovation,and practical innovation.The practical approaches must be systematically explored,including rooting in the soil of China while addressing socio-cultural contexts,drawing on practice to resolve problems with outcome-oriented strategies,and embracing social transformations to leverage technological empowerment and foster future development.Sustainable development can be realized,under enabling conditions such as institutional and mechanism innovation,strong talent support,sufficient resource investment,and optimized evaluation mechanisms,sustainable development can be realized.Ultimately,this will lead to the formation of a logically coherent,structurally integrated,distinctively characterized,and internationally influential independent knowledge system of mental health science in China,thereby empowering the construction of the national mental health service system and the cultivation of high-quality talents,while contributing Chinese wisdom,Chinese solutions,and Chinese strength to the global repository of mental health knowledge.

Key words: mental health, mental health science, independent knowledge system, Chinese characteristics