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)