It's hard to find a reliable counselor. Photo: Master of Hypnosis
In the face of the chaotic psychological counseling market, the next step of the country's reform is particularly important, go well, benefit the country and the people; go bad, drink and quench thirst. And as individuals, how do we find a reliable counselor now?
In recent years, depression has received increasing attention.
Many popular science articles have said that depression is a disease rather than a general emotional problem, and the comfort and enlightenment of relatives and friends around cannot solve the problem, and you should see a psychologist in time.
As everyone knows, finding a psychologist may also push depressed people into another fire pit.
Recently, Mr. Xu and Ms. Li were maliciously charged a total of 400,000 yuan in psychological counseling for nearly four years.
During this period, he was repeatedly maliciously delayed by psychologists and induced excessive consumption. The longest time, Ms. Li received 5 hours of psychological counseling for 5 consecutive hours, and the consultation was until more than 12 o'clock in the evening, and the psychologist still did not let her go.
A good psychotherapist should act as a container, holding in emotions that we dare not release and telling us ,"It's not your fault." Photo: Mindcatcher
Mr. Xu and Ms. Li asked the doctor to refund the remaining 257 minutes, but they were threatened by each other, and the psychologist threatened: "If I poke this matter out, I will make all the recordings since 2017 public." ”
The medical treatment rate of depressed patients is already very low, and it is difficult to pluck up the courage to do psychological counseling, not only has little "chat effect", but also is taken advantage of by psychologists and extorted.
This can't help but make people wonder, how can anyone be a psychologist in these years?
Recently, the "Unity Psychological Counseling Service Center" in Hohhot also caused a human life because of the special "rattan therapy" (students beat each other with rattan during psychological counseling).
The world's bitter psychological problems have been around for a long time
With the acceleration of the pace of modern life, the survival pressure of urban young people has increased sharply, and psychological diseases such as depression and anxiety have slowly received people's attention.
According to the 2018 "White Paper on the Mental Health of Urban Residents in China", 73.6% of people in China are in a state of psychological sub-health, and 16.1% of people have different degrees of psychological problems, that is to say, 90% of Chinese have different degrees of mental health problems.
"The Lesson of Love" says that "each of us is born with a dual identity, that is, the identity in the kingdom of health and the identity in the kingdom of disease", each of us will be sick sooner or later, but what we did not expect is that mental illness will one day haunt us.
Behind the huge market size, there is also a fact that cannot be ignored: psychological counseling objects are getting younger and younger. Photo: Homework
The fight against mental illness is a protracted tug-of-war, and if you are not careful, you are likely to lose halfway. Taking depression, which is most concerned by the media and the public, for example, the number of depressed patients in China currently exceeds 54 million, and the number of suicides due to depression is as high as more than 200,000 every year.
Mental illness is like a high pyramid, and people often pay attention to the six major mental illnesses that account for only 1% of the spire, while the other hundreds of millions of people hidden under the spire are often overlooked.
People are often unaware of their psychological problems and do not realize their severity until the symptoms are manifested through the body.
In the movie "Wallflower Boy", the male protagonist Charlie suffered from social phobia and depression because he was molested by his aunt when he was a child, and eventually fainted in the snow.
Stigmatization of mental illness is the primary reason why Chinese avoid counselling. In traditional Chinese culture, which values stability, mental illness is considered a bad thing because it is unpredictable and endangers social stability.
In ancient times, people associated it with ghosts and evil spirits, and to this day, accusing others of mental illness is naturally seen as an insult and slanderous act.
People unconsciously associate mental illness with labels such as "fragile" and "temperamental", and patients have to endure the stigma caused by social stereotypes when suffering from illness.
The public's stigmatization of mental illness has made Chinese people shy to ask for help when they encounter psychological distress. Photo/unsplash
Fees and privacy issues have also become the biggest psychological obstacles for every patient who wants to enter the counseling room.
At present, the price of psychological counseling on the market is generally based on the qualifications and experience of psychological counselors, etc., the implementation of ladder pricing, ranging from 800 to 4,000 yuan per hour, in such a charging model, there is a psychological counselor malicious delay for a long time, induce excessive consumption.
When searching for psychological counseling private institutions on the Internet, confidentiality regulations are generally not published on the website, and patients' privacy and rights and interests are easily infringed.
At the beginning of the article, even though Ms. Li signed a confidentiality contract in advance, which clearly stipulated that the consent of the patient was required for audio and video recordings, the "consultant" still secretly recorded the sound without Ms. Li's knowledge, and threatened her to give up the refund.
At the same time, there is a huge gap in psychological counselors in China, and according to the World Health Organization's recommendation that "having a counselor per thousand people is the balance point of a healthy society", China needs at least 1.3 million psychological counselors. But in fact, as of 2017, there are fewer than 6,000 professional psychotherapists in China.
In addition to psychological counseling, more than half of them have other side jobs, supervision, teaching, training... It is conceivable that you can focus on psychological counseling and research.
Most of the existing psychiatrists mainly treat serious mental disorders, and there are insufficient services for common mental disorders and psychological problems. Photo/ CCTV
You can also be a counselor if you want to
Professionals are few and far between, but the market size is surging forward. The latest data show that in 2018, the scale of China's psychological counseling market has reached 38 billion yuan, the number of "psychological counseling" registered companies has grown rapidly, the overall number has reached 5 times that of five years ago, and the holders of the second and third level certificates of national psychological counselors have already exceeded 1 million.
However, the amount of water mixed with this certificate is very high, and the purpose of the state issuing this certificate is mainly to solve the problem of reemployment of a large number of laid-off employees from the 1990s to the beginning of the 21st century, and it can barely be regarded as a skill appraisal certificate.
According to the National Occupational Standards for Psychological Counselors issued by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the minimum academic qualification for applicants is only a junior college. And in the "Standards", there are no specific requirements for the position of psychological counselors in terms of personality traits.
Psychological counseling expert Kafka once said that "counseling is the outpouring of life", the comprehensive quality of psychological counselors to a large extent determines the effect of our psychological counseling, good counselors can become our negative emotions of stress relievers, and an unqualified counselor can become the fuse of our violent emotions.
The counselor in "The Boss Goes Sideways" meets a gangster boss with childhood trauma, and after a series of wonderful experiences, he builds self-confidence and heals the client.
In the current content requirements for the training of domestic psychological counselors, the examinees only need to master seven courses including general psychology, social psychology, and developmental psychology, which are incomplete, shallow, and have fewer lessons, and most of the training time is only 320-720 class hours.
At best, these courses can only learn the introductory content of the undergraduate courses of the Department of Psychology, but the training can get a certificate in a few months, so that the "consultants" taught by the "test-taking training" will not be so comprehensive.
In September 2017, China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security cancelled the original national second- and third-level psychological counselor certificates, and handed over the psychological counselor certification department to the Health Commission, after which it is planned to be included in the medical and health system.
But two years later, the Health Commission has not issued a new set of psychological counselor certification programs and ethical standards. The management of psychological counseling institutions implicated by this is also chaotic, and the business licenses of the consulting institutions are still approved by the industry and commerce departments and the civil affairs departments, and have not yet been fully integrated into the medical and health system.
The depiction of hypnosis in film and television dramas "mythologizes" the profession of psychological counselors. Photo: Master of Hypnosis
The old certificate has not completely lost its effectiveness, the current psychological counseling institutions and platforms, usually will be the psychological counselor two or three certificates as the main criteria for the evaluation of counseling teachers, those who are not high quality, non-science class, after several months of basic training can get the psychological counselor certificate, is still threatening to endanger the psychological counseling market.
Using a search engine, with "psychological counseling" as a keyword to search, pop-up is mostly a third-party network psychological counseling platform, on these websites, counselors are mostly in the form of experts settled in the form of "listing business", the platform only as a consultant and visitor intermediary agency exists.
Among the information that can be found on the website, more than 40% of psychological counselors have not published the number information of their psychological counselor certificates, and all qualifications are reviewed by the platform, which cannot help but make consumers mark their credibility.
According to a survey, only 5% of online psychological counselors have more than 3 years of work experience, and 70.9% of counselors lack confidence in the effectiveness of their own counseling. Photo/pixabay
After the second and third level certificates were cancelled, some consultants in the industry took the so-called "ACI American Certification Association Registered International Consultant" certificate to prove their professional qualifications, but on the "Foreign Vocational Qualification Certificate Management Platform" of the Vocational Skills Appraisal Center of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, relevant information about ACI (American Certification Association) could not be found.
According to the staff of the education and training institutions that have cooperated with ACI, ACI does not actually have any industry qualifications, it is just a private organization that makes huge profits by selling certificates, and the cost of 10 certificates is not even 1,000 yuan.
In other words, as long as you want, you can also spend some money to buy this certificate, and then go public with business to counsel others about psychological problems.
The ACI certificate is of unknown origin and is suspected of violating the law. Photo/ "First Time"
Reliable psychological counseling is really difficult to find
"In the face of the psychological counseling industry with low investment, high return and low economic risk, many people who do not have professional quality in psychology have broken into this industry with strong professional requirements and extreme risks."
And this intrusion is bound to be extremely dangerous, leaving patients with mental problems to unprofessional and inexperienced "charlatans" to arbitrarily "fiddle", which may be devastating to the patient.
Although the state has long been aware of the chaos in the domestic psychological counseling industry, timely tail break to survive, cancel the national second- and third-level psychological counselor certificate with great water content, but the more than 1 million people who have already obtained the certificate can still run amok in this industry without bearing any economic risks and legal responsibilities.
In this way, the next step of the Health Commission is particularly important for the reform of the psychological counseling industry, going well, benefiting the country and the people; walking badly, drinking and quenching thirst.
If your counselor doesn't even take notes during the consultation, you must fire him or her quickly. Figure/Figureworm Creative
China's modern psychological counseling and treatment started late, in contrast, European and American countries for psychological counseling professional training and strict identification system is much better than ours.
In the United States, if you want to enter the professional field of psychology, you must go through rigorous academic education and systematic training, and the applicant's minimum academic level must be a master's degree in clinical or counseling psychology, and after graduation, you must also take the relevant qualification examination, and you can only take the job after passing.
It's not impossible to get out of the house halfway, but you have to take long-term, rigorous training in professional psychotherapy to qualify, which usually takes several years in a row, and in addition to requiring you to have knowledge of psychology and medicine, you must also dabble in literature, philosophy, sociology and other related fields.
The qualification certificate is not a first-instance qualification for life, and after the consultant holds the certificate, he or she must not only undergo at least 20 hours of continuing education and training recognized by the Licensing Committee, but also submit an annual self-assessment report every year. The Committee conducts regular follow-up visits every few years to control the professional quality of the consultants.
The American Counseling Association (ACA) is the world's largest association of representatives of non-profit professional counselors, providing services including mental health counseling, marriage and family counseling. Figure/wikipedia
Psychological counselors in the United Kingdom adhere to the lifelong supervision system (to help psychological counselors improve their professional level), which is very important in the British psychological counseling system, even very senior psychologists must also accept supervision.
In the British psychological counseling training, special attention is also paid to the "personality development" of counselors and the establishment of empathy, so as to avoid blindly worshiping theory and ignoring the patient's personal perception, and gradually letting them enter a situation of rigidity and powerlessness.
More importantly, countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States have long incorporated psychological counseling and treatment into the publicly-funded medical system in various forms, and most of the diagnosis and treatment services of clinical medical psychologists in the United States can be paid for by the insurance company's medical insurance system, while the United Kingdom is undertaken by the National Health Service Agency (NHS) to undertake the responsibility of publicly funded health care in the United Kingdom.
The NHS is one of the few national free health services in the world and a platform for dialogue and exchange between China and the UK. Figure/wikipedia
In contrast, China has done a significantly short amount in this regard, there are too few non-profit institutions that provide free psychological counseling, and psychological treatment and counseling services have not yet been included in the medical insurance system.
Such experiences and discussions may not end with the phrase "they are developed countries, as they should be, we are developing countries, really incomparable", in fact, such a publicly funded health care system covering all citizens would be a burden for the finances of any country.
Formulate relevant laws and regulations on psychological counseling, standardize psychological counseling fees, strictly train and assess psychological counselors, promote the dynamic review mechanism of counselors, strengthen industry market supervision, and strengthen the self-discipline of practitioners through industry associations... Such reforms should not continue in their tracks.
Psychological counseling can only be used as an aid, and you still have to rely on yourself to solve the problem. Photo/ "Marriage Counseling"
In the face of the current muddy psychological counseling industry, if we personally want to find a reliable psychological counselor, we still have to distinguish carefully, do not just look at people to take out a psychological counseling certificate of unknown origin and be led by the nose, you can ask the psychological counselor's training background, years of practice, consultation hours, whether they have received supervision, etc., and then make a judgment.
More importantly, before starting psychological counseling, you must sign a counseling agreement to clarify the scope of responsibility and confidentiality of both parties, which can not only allow the counselor to have no worries, but also protect his own interests from infringement.
bibliography:
[1] Training and Management of Mental Health Service System in North America, Yao Ping and Qian Mingyi, China Mental Health, Vol. 22, No. 2, 2008
[2] An Investigation on the Cognition of Online Psychological Counselors on Online Psychological Counseling and its Work Status, Chen Xiaocheng, Health Care Medical Research and Practice, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2011
[3] The current situation and ethical issues of network psychological counseling in mainland China: "Big Data" Perspective and Ethical Evaluation, Lai Lizu, Tao Rong, Ren Zhihong, Jiang Guangrong, Psychological Science, 2018-05-28
[4] 2018 Psychological Counseling Industry Population Insight Report, Simple Psychology, 2018-12-24
[5] There are about 54 million people with depression in China and the related suicide rate remains high, 21st Century Business Herald, 2019-06-13
[6] Depression iceberg: WHO predicts that by 2020, there may be 1 in 10 people with depression, 21st Century Business Herald, 2018-02-01
[7] Focus on the suggestions of the | members of the two sessions of the autonomous region: psychological counseling and psychotherapy should be included in medical insurance, Xinjiang Net, 2018-01-25
✎ Author | Zhao Wanxi
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