"A psychiatrist's job is quite subjective, and sometimes when we talk to visitors, another psychiatrist must be present. This psychiatrist plays the role of supervisor, and his level is irrelevant. This is quite necessary," explained Lin to the Global Times.
However, experienced psychiatrists can offer more suggestions to novices than their peers, he added.
In their job, psychiatrists need a great deal of experience to help visitors with serious problems, while currently in China, most professionals have only been in the job for a short time, said Ou.
When they come across difficult problems, psychiatrists must turn to supervisors for help. But the number of experienced supervisors is limited, and the cost is very high, said Ou.
Commonly, a small team of eight to 10 psychiatrists is set up to counsel fellow professionals in need of help. They share experiences based on previous cases and offer suggestions to each other.
Bigger classes are also held, where psychiatrists attend training sessions for a whole day. In the morning, experienced supervisors share knowledge of psychotherapy and in the afternoon they discuss cases.
"This helps solve the predicament of not having enough supervisors," said Ou.
Where problems arise
Common symptoms experienced by psychiatrists are depression or feelings of rage. Zhou Haisong says this is because psychiatrists use themselves as a tool to work, talk with visitors, analyze their problems, and finally solve them.
"There are no techniques or academic schools that are there for us to use when we deal with specific cases. We only have ourselves," said Zhou.
In order to cure visitors, an emotional relationship first needs to be built between psychiatrists and visitors. After that, trust can be established, and visitors will then practice the proper form of communication between psychiatrists and themselves, which visitors use with colleagues, family members or friends. This is how empathy occurs, and is essential for psychotherapy.
"The form visitors take usually has problems, and it's why visitors need help from psychiatrists," explained Ou.
Under most circumstances, the form of communication which visitors use gets them into various kinds of conflict. They are either mocked or even verbally abused in daily life. But in the therapy room a psychiatrist must try to stand with the visitors and tolerate their defensive tendency or even verbal abuse.
"This is partly where psychiatrists' negative emotions come from," she said.
After a period of time, psychiatrists analyze what's wrong with visitors, and gradually lead them onto a healthy path.
"But the precondition is that psychiatrists should be tolerant and able to control the situation," said Ou.
However, when they come face to face with these visitors, some psychiatrists feel helpless, and that's when the transference of negative emotions occurs.
Psychiatrists may become impatient, intolerant, and even argue with visitors. "The obvious symptom is that psychiatrists don't want their visitors to come any more, even though they won't say this out loud," said Ou, adding that this marks the end of the relationship.
An accumulation of failed experiences will also lead to psychiatrists becoming exhausted. "They feel they have lost the ability to care about others, and they feel 'burnt out' in their career," she said.
The breakup of a psychiatrist-visitor relationship is a form of failure, but is an inevitable one for most psychiatrists. Being too emotional toward visitors is also seen as a failure, because it does nothing to help solve or even detect a visitor's problems.
Besides these failures, psychiatrists also develop their professional abilities through repeated practice and their own observations. They also need to study constantly to improve their professional abilities.
Psychiatrists' confidence can also be undermined by people who don't believe visiting them will work, or conversely, who think that psychiatrists can help solve all their problems, said Ou.
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