Counseling for life

华科大跳楼事件为高校敲响警钟

Officials from the university are reluctant to give interviews.
校方官员们不愿接受采访。

“We had a hard time calming down students who were shocked at the suicides,” said Zhang Jingyuan, head of HUST’s center for research and guidance for students’ development.
“我们好不容易才安抚好那些被自杀事件吓坏了的学生，”华中科技大学大学生发展研究与指导中心主任章劲元说。

“Media coverage may arouse some students’ negative emotions again. Suicide can be contagious,” Zhang said.
他说，“媒体的报道将会再次引发学生的消极情绪，自杀是会传染的。”

The university reacted promptly to the first suicide on October 23.
对于今年10月23号发生的第一起自杀事件，华中科技大学迅速做出应急措施。

Advisors and class leaders conducted dorm-to-dorm checks to find students suffering depression. Then psychologists offered one-on-one counseling to them.
辅导员和班长们走访了每个宿舍，找出遭遇抑郁的学生。然后，心理咨询师会为这些学生提供一对一的心理咨询。

Notice boards publicizing tips for identifying peers’ mental problems and offering help were set up in front of dorm buildings. Leaflets carrying similar information were handed out to each dorm.
宿舍楼前竖起一些布告栏，为同学们普及关于如何发现身边人遭遇心理问题并提供帮助的小贴士。印有类似内容的小册子也被分发给每个寝室。

However, the second suicide came seven days later.
然而，七天后，第二起自杀事件发生了。

Both students were described as men of few words. Their schoolmates didn’t see anything to indicate suicide.
据周围人描述，这两名学生都很少言寡语。他们的同学都没有觉察到任何自杀前的征兆。

Zhang revealed that the two students had been bothered by mental disorders. But the school didn’t know this until the students’ close friends outside school and their parents unveiled the truth after the suicides.
章劲元透露，这两名学生曾经饱受心理疾病的困扰。但是学校对此并不知情，他们校外的好友和家长也是在自杀事件发生后才说出实情。

According to Zhang, there are only three full-time counselors working in the university’s counseling center for its 60,000 students. He complained: “It’s unrealistic to rely only on counselors to detect students’ mental problems.”
据章劲元说，全校共有六万名学生，但学校的心理咨询中心只有三位全职心理咨询师。他抱怨说：“仅仅依靠心理咨询师来察觉学生的心理问题，这是不现实的。”

Some universities in the US may be able to offer solutions to Zhang’s worries. They have established programs to train students to be the bridge between troubled friends and counselors.
一些美国的大学或许可以为章劲元的担忧提供解决对策。他们成立了一些学生培训项目，使得他们能够在陷入困境的同伴与心理咨询师之间搭起桥梁。

At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, at Worcester, Massachusetts, US, young people in the Student Support Network role play to learn how to detect SOS signals from their schoolmates.
在美国马萨诸塞州的伍斯特理工学院，来自“学生支持网络”的年轻人们通过角色扮演来学习如何去察觉他们身边的同学们发出的求救信号。

They also practice how to gently persuade emotionally troubled students to go for professional help.
他们也会练习如何委婉说服那些遭遇心理问题的学生们去寻找专业帮助。

To develop such empathy, many universities in China have organized campus events to popularize knowledge about mental health. But these are not that attractive to students.
为了发挥这种移情作用，很多中国大学也组织了一系列校园活动来普及心理健康知识。但这些活动对学生来说没什么吸引力。

Ke Juanjuan, 24, is pursuing a master’s degree in English translation at HUST. Ke has found that few of her peers will pay attention to activities about mental health when they are not troubled by it.
24岁的柯娟娟（音译）正在华中科技大学攻读英语翻译硕士学位。她发现，在没有遭遇心理问题的情况下，她身边的同龄人几乎没人会去关注这些心理健康活动。

Rather than bombard students with the words “mental health”, Ke suggested the school organize lectures and workshops concerning study, job-hunting and relationships. She explained: “Students care about these topics. They tend to have problems in these areas and may thus get stuck in depression.
比起连珠炮式地向学生们灌输“心理健康”，柯娟娟更建议学校去组织一些与学习、求职以及恋爱关系有关的讲座和工作坊。她解释说：“学生都很关注这些话题。他们常常在这些方面遇到难题，很可能因此陷入绝望。

“By helping students better deal with these problems, the school can effectively prevent self-inflicted injury and suicide among students.”
“通过帮助学生更好地处理这些问题，学校可以有效预防学生中自残和自杀事件的发生。”

Effective prevention comes from long-term education for life instead of temporary intervention to meet an emergency, said Hu Yi’an. Hu delivers a course of lectures on life and death at Guangzhou University. He worries that universities have paid little attention to education for life.
有效的预防来自于长期的生命教育，而并非遭遇紧急状况时的临时干预，胡毅安（音译）说。他在广州大学教授以生命和死亡为主题的课程。他为各大高校给予生命教育的关注少之又少而担忧。

“Education for life helps students respect and love life so they won’t resort to ending their lives when they have difficulties,” said Hu.
“生命教育可以帮助学生尊重、热爱生命，这样一来，当他们遇到困难的时候就不会选择结束生命了,” 胡毅安说。

According to Hu, the principles can be incorporated into everyday teaching.
胡毅安还表示，这些观念可以融入到日常教学中去。

For example, teachers should make it clear to students that they are not studying chemistry to obtain a diploma or find a job; it’s a science that can, say, invent medicine to make people’s life better.
例如，老师们应该清楚地告诉学生，他们之所以要学习化学并不仅仅是为了拿到毕业证或找份工作；化学是一门科学，它可以用来发明药物，进而造福百姓生活。

Hu is also concerned that some universities are conveying discriminatory message that will hold back students from seeking help.
胡老师也很担心一些大学传递出带有歧视性的信息会使得学生们不愿去寻求帮助。

When HUST conducted the dorm-to-dorm examination, students with poor academic performance were paid special attention. In March, Peking University also released a controversial policy, which required teachers to have a chat with students “with biased thinking”.
当华中科技大学校方挨个宿舍进行走访时，学习成绩较差的学生也被给予了特别关照。三月份，北京大学也推行了一项备受争议的政策，该新规要求教师们要找那些学生中的“激进分子”谈话。

Yu Xiaojie, 17, is a freshman from Communication University of China, Nanjing. He has an inferiority complex about being from the countryside. He’s also nervous about getting on with fellow students.
17岁的于晓杰（音译）是中国传媒大学南广学院的一名大一新生。他对于自己来自于农村而感到自卑，与同学相处时也很紧张。

Yu has turned to strangers online, most of whom are as pessimistic about college life as he is. “I’m afraid of being outspoken in front of my teachers and classmates. They may treat me as if I were a troubled kid,” said Yu.
于晓杰更喜欢同陌生网友相处，他们当中的大多数人也和他一样，对大学生活持悲观态度。“当着老师和同学的面，我不敢畅所欲言。他们可能会把我当成是问题少年。”于晓杰说。

However, Hu suggested that students step out of their comfort zone to seek real-life communication.
而胡毅安则建议学生们要走出他们的舒适地带，寻找现实中的沟通交流。