The description seems almost understated as 28-year-old Wang Xi sits on the floor of the tent he shares with his wife’s family. “We have been feeling over-wrought and stressed,” he explains.
His parents-in-law, he says, have been missing since the 12 May earthquake, presumed buried under the rubble of their house in the devastated town of Beichuan, from where many thousands of homeless survivors are now sheltering in and around this giant stadium. “We have given up hope of finding them,” he says, having tried through the internet and the media and having been back to the devastated town of Beichuan.
The family has just been visited by a Chinese Red Cross Psychosocial team, busy training up volunteers for the massive task of bringing support to those among the millions of families affected by the disaster that may be in need of it.
The weather may be drizzly and the ground muddy, but there's animation on the faces of several family groups of earthquake survivors as they sit talking to the team members.
The first stage of the team’s approach is to go through a questionnaire, asking about family situation and emotional responses. Just the concern of strangers seems to be a helpful stimulus, with simple guidance on the need to express feelings rather than bottling them up.
But the emphasis is just as much on the practical as on the emotional, says Liu Ya, a volunteer psychologist who's a member of the more than 20-strong team.
"For example some people were worrying about how to get their money out of the bank when they had no means of proving their identity, so I explained to them that they could get a grant from the government to tide them over."
The Red Cross Society of China sent several psychosocial teams to the disaster area, with a number also going from other organizations. But clearly to make any inroads into the vast numbers of potential clients – millions who have lost their homes and in some cases their loved ones and may need help regaining their natural resilience - they will have to rely on training a huge corps of volunteers.
They will have to start with basic counseling techniques "like when somebody is crying, you shouldn't tell them not to cry but should allow them to vent their grief," says Ms Liu.
"The help we need from abroad is training for more psychologists so they can train more volunteers," says Yang Fengchi, a psychology professor at Peking's Capital Medical University, who leads one of the teams.
It's not yet clear whether a unified approach will emerge on methods of providing psychosocial care to the survivors. In their work with rescuers who have experienced the trauma of pulling people from the rubble, Professor Yang’s team has been using group work, with a mixture of western and more traditional Chinese techniques.
"We combine alternative interpersonal communications models with deep breathing from Tai Qi, which is a bit like meditation and we also show people how to find the acupressure points on the arm which help you to calm down your feelings," he says.
The important thing "is to find things that work for people in this situation where so many have lost family and their homes and have every reason to experience difficult emotions," says Amgaa Oyungerel, Regional Health Delegate for East Asia, who's in Sichuan.
In the coming days and weeks, Red Cross efforts to help people achieve greater psychological wellbeing will rapidly gain momentum, in an operation that – like so much else about this disaster – will have to be of unprecedented scale.
|
 |
 |
|
|
Red Cross Society of China psychosocial team leader taking notes while talking to a person affected by the earthquake. (p17178)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Psychologist Liu Ya, member of one of the Red Cross Society of China psychosocial teams, helping earthquake survivors with practical issues such as how to get money out of the bank if they've lost all their identity papers. (p17719)
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Earthquake survivors shelter at a fire station in An County, Sichuan. (p17720)
|
|
|
 |
|
|
A Red Cross psychosocial team volunteer talking to an earthquake survivor in Jiuzhou Stadium, Mianyang, Sichuan. (p17721)
|
|
News
