More Beijingers seek

counseling service

By Wang Wei (China Daily)

Updated: 2009-12-16 08:02

A 27-year-old consultant is sitting in a dark room, listening to a psychologist analyze her subconscious using the positioning of cartoon characters she placed on a board.

The woman surnamed Liu became a frequent visitor of a stress management club established by the Beijing youth stress management service center, after her workload was significantly reduced due to the financial crisis.

"Idling away time at work and doing nothing made me anxious," said Liu, who works in the Beijing office of a Danish company. "Besides I had some problems with my boyfriend at that time. For the first time I felt I was wasting my life."

She was doubtful when she first joined the stress management club last year, but now she said her life has dramatically improved. "It helped me to better understand myself," she said. "I learnt to think positive and how to achieve a balance between life and work," she said.

As young people bear more and more pressure from work, family and society, the demand of psychological counseling is also expanding rapidly in Beijing.

Dr Xiong Hanzhong, founder and director of the Beijing youth stress management service center, said it only took four and a half years for the number of members to grow from zero to 500.

Services at the center includes stress management club activities, psychological counseling for individuals, stress management training for companies and promotion of stress management knowledge.

Xiong said that in the beginning, most visitors were dragged to the center by their relatives or friends, and many of them suffered from some psychological problems.

"It was a taboo to seek therapy at that time, people would think you were crazy or had mental disease," he said.

But in two years, people have become more tolerant about psychological therapies. Many well-established company executives now come voluntarily to seek help.

About 30 percent of visitors to the center are middle and high school students who have problems studying, and the remainder are mainly business people who suffer pressure from work and life, according to Xiong.

A white paper on the health condition of China's executives released by Beijing-based newspaper Health Time shows 76 percent of people are threatened by harmful conditions, primarily the result of pressure.

Xiong said the first type of pressure is from work. Competition at workplace is fierce and many people worry they may lose their job or have their salary cut during the financial crisis.

The other source of stress is from daily life. Many people cannot afford skyrocketing housing prices and also suffer marital problems.

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Without proper treatment, people with these problems can suffer from insomnia, indigestion and even cancer in some serious cases.

Xiong said if people feel relieved after shopping, buy useless items or frequently eat and drink beyond normal levels, then it is a sign of great pressure.

The most common way of dealing with stress in life is to lower the significance of the things that bother you, leave the environment which causes stress and do something you enjoy. Seeking counseling is also a good option, Xiong said.

"Whenever I feel pressure I often play a sport I like table tennis or go to suburban area of Beijing during weekends," he said.

Xiong believed it is government's responsibility to provide a conducive social welfare system to help people who surfer excessive stresses.

"I hope one day psychological counseling will be covered by the medical care system, then people will have even better life," he said.

(China Daily 12/16/2009 page28