China seeks psychiatric help for quake trauma
By Dune Lawrence, Bloomberg
BEIJING -- Sichuan earthquake survivors need international help to cope with the emotional aftermath of a disaster that killed more than 60,000 people, the province’s deputy governor Li Chengyun said.
“This quake has left a huge psychological trauma on local residents, in particular orphans,” Li said Friday at a press conference in Beijing. “We welcome and need help in this area” from overseas psychiatrists and psychologists.
China, with a population of 1.3 billion, has about 19,000 psychiatrists, half the number registered with the Arlington, Virginia-based American Psychiatric Association. Counseling will focus on children who survived the nation’s deadliest temblor in 32 years, Li said.
More than 200,000 volunteers are providing counseling and comfort to quake victims, Li said. While the Chinese government has accepted limited numbers of foreign medical and rescue teams, non-governmental organizations have reached out to international partners for help in providing psychiatric services. About 12 million people have been displaced by the disaster.
Elise Snyder, a 74-year-old psychoanalyst in New York, said she receives about 50 e-mails an hour requesting or offering psychiatric help for quake victims.
Snyder, the president of the non-profit China American Psychoanalytic Alliance, is working with the disaster relief organization Mercy Corps to translate a children’s workbook called “My Earthquake Story” into Chinese and train teachers, parents and volunteers to use it with local kids. A similar book, “My Hurricane Story,” was used in the aftermath of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in the U.S.
Snyder has received inquiries from the Chengdu Department of Education about the book, which may have a first printing of as many as 500,000 copies. Chengdu is Sichuan’s capital.
She’s also setting up 5-hour Internet and telephone-based disaster training workshops for Chinese psychiatrists through the American Psychiatric Association and Disaster Psychiatry Outreach.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time telling people in China, don’t go to Chengdu yet, get trained first,” Snyder said.
The greatest need is for volunteer training, said Francis Markus, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, who is working in Sichuan.
“China is incredibly short of psychiatrists and psychologists, so this really needs to be done by volunteers at the local level,” Markus said.
Hotlines for victims may help supplement relief workers on the ground, with nine universities opening hotlines and Web sites, Xinhua reported.
Sichuan is a major source of laborers in Chinese cities, with many leaving behind families to take seasonal jobs under harsh conditions.
“They feel guilty that they weren’t there,” said Wang Xingjuan, head of the Beijing-based Maple Women’s Psychological Counseling Center, which opened a hotline mainly for people in Beijing with family in Sichuan.
