According to Guangzhou Daily, the domestic psychological
consulting industry is in danger due to a lack of consultant
assessment and supervision.
More than 16 million people suffer from various psychological
diseases associated with depression, with most of these not
detected in time.
"For a psychological consultant, the problems he or she faces
are all new. From this point of view, 10,000 individuals have
10,000 reasons for depression. But many consultants are not
professional," said Yuan Rongqin, a director of a psychological
consulting center in Guangzhou.
Jia Fujun, director of the Guangdong Mental Health Research
Institute, told the newspaper that the team of psychological
consultants is jumbled. "Some of them have done psychology majors
in medical universities, some from other universities and some even
from psychological consulting training organized by labor and
social security departments."
Of the first batch of 65 trainees in a psychological consulting
training center in Guangzhou in 2003, about 40 percent were medical
staff, 20 percent were educational workers, about 10 percent were
managerial personnel with the rest being accountants, editors,
journalists, radio DJs and so on. According to Huang Duoxiang, an
associate professor in psychology at Sun Yat-Sen University.
"Jumbled team can easily lead to bad treatment." Jia said, "It
is common that the early mental disease evolves to chronic for not
being treated in time. Mental disease patients may commit suicide
if been diagnosed wrongly."
More dreadful, the original intention of many consultants is to
solve their own mental diseases. It is reported that head of a
consultant training center which claimed itself to be the largest
in China frankly admits that 50 percent of its trainees have mental
diseases themselves. This situation eventually makes the consulting
industry dangerous.
As for the first generation of the consultants, Huang compared
them to drivers who can't drive expertly but they do have driving
licenses.
"Psychological consulting industry is promising, but it also
poses a threat," Yuan said. "It is not easy to be a really
qualified consultant. Some new consultants complained to me that
some of the patients were excessively dependent on them and called
them dozens of times a day."
"Compared with foreign countries, China's threshold for
psychological consulting is too low," Jia lamented. "It is pretty
easy to get certification for psychological consultants, as well as
the business license, while there are no scientific evaluation
systems to judge the curative effect."
"Controversies have always existed in the consultant management.
For the certification is issued by the labor departments which are
not qualified to evaluate the consulting, health departments are
needed to do so. It is always unclear which department the
management power belongs to," Yuan pointed out.
"Besides, there are no related identification standards or
regulations on whether the accidents caused by consulting failure
can be called medical accident," Jia said. There had already been
similar lawsuits in Hong Kong.
Experts point out that long-term reform of the psychological
consulting industry must rely on unified efforts by related
government departments in charge of health, education, labor,
social security and industry and commerce and nongovernmental
organizations. Systematic renovation and restriction should also be
carried out with the threshold of the consulting industry being
raised.
"In foreign countries, there are strict requirements for
psychological consultants. Before getting a license and starting
their business, they have to practice for some time, successfully
cure some patients and be censored by qualified authentication
departments," said Li Guorui, an associate professor in psychology
at East China Normal University.
It has been already a year since the Ministry of Labor and
Social Security launched the "National Standard of Psychological
Consultants." Due to this social recognition, the consulting
industry is showing promise with thousands of first-generation
consultants with certifications. However, most of them switched to
this job that they were not trained for and labor and social
security departments are only responsible for issuing occupation
certifications, leaving no supervision or management of
consultants.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiaohua, September 22, 2006)