Who would study psychology if they didn't have some kind of problem?

Chapter 199 Targeting Family Members
What are the problems with Li Minglu's case?

Upon hearing this, Nan Zhuren's eyes widened in surprise.

The case of Li Minglu has always been an unsolved mystery in his mind.

The unsolved mystery lies in why Lin Lilin handed the case over to him.
Li Minglu's depression has complex causes and profound issues; however, in terms of intervention, it can be described as "normal".

But since Li Minglu's case was sent by Lin Lilin, this normalcy became an "abnormality".

Surely it's not like Old Deng suddenly had a change of heart, realized that his abandoned apprentice had no cases to practice on, so he specially sent someone over to reconnect and hopefully rebuild the master-apprentice relationship, right?

Instead, we should think about how to increase the chances of the Chinese national football team qualifying for the World Cup again.

There's definitely something wrong with Li Minglu's case.

However, Nan Zhuren couldn't find the problem, so he had always been deeply concerned about it.

Huang Xin's news has now brought Nan Zhuren a mix of joy and apprehension.

Surprisingly, when Huang Xin saw Nan Zhuren's attentive expression, he finally showed a satisfied look.

Then, without any pretense, he spoke directly to Nan Zhuren—

"After you left, I had Liu Pan tell me in detail about his work in Li Minglu's intervention. That guy always does whatever the teacher tells him to do, sometimes he doesn't even know what he's doing."

Nan Zhuren nodded in agreement, which was also the reason why he had achieved almost nothing in the laboratory before.

“But after listening to his account, I noticed something was off,” Huang Xin said. “He spent too much time on the family members of the visitors.”

Nan Zhuren blinked: "Wang Sui?"

Huang Xin shook his head: "I don't know what Li Minglu's family member's name is. I only know that every time the teacher is counseling Li Minglu, Liu Pan will also sit outside and talk with the family member for the entire duration of the counseling session. Liu Pan will talk to her for as long as Li Minglu is counseling."

"Moreover, according to Liu Pan, he was asked to use counseling techniques throughout the conversation; but he wasn't counseling, he was just chatting—do you know what that means?"

Nan Zhuren's brows immediately furrowed.

"This means that the family members of the visitors will find that they have encountered a conversation partner who can take up any topic, expand on it, delve into it, and provide support, and who can gain extraordinary emotional value."

In other words—he's applying empathy to the visitor's family!

……

Nan Zhuren's eyes widened suddenly.

Huang Xin nodded slowly as he observed Nan Zhuren's reaction.

Nan Zhuren asked doubtfully, "Is Liu Pan capable of doing this?"

good question.

Huang Xin sighed: "I had my doubts at first. But the teacher trusts him a lot, which means he is indeed capable of doing this job."

"Now that I think about it carefully, although this guy is a bit... naive, his background and education meant he would have some fragmented skills; even if they were disjointed and unsystematic, unable to support him in conducting a systematic consultation, if he were willing to put his heart and soul into using them in his daily interactions—"

Huang Xin slowly said, "It might have a surprising effect on certain special chat partners."

Nan Zhuren recalled the personality traits that Wang Sui had displayed. He nodded solemnly: "Li Minglu's family members are indeed the kind of 'special chat partners'."

Huang Xin shrugged and spread his hands.

"This kind of empathy for family members is rarely done in the industry. Because it means spending a lot of time outside of counseling, racking your brains to chat with people; it's better to empathize directly with the client during counseling than to do that."

"But it is very suitable for dealing with depression like Li Minglu's, who lacks the ability to make independent decisions. All of his major life decisions are now made by his family. In some ways, it is more effective to get the family to empathize than to get him to empathize himself."

Nan Zhuren immediately understood the logic behind it and found that it was indeed effective.

"On the one hand, this kind of empathy for family members provides training for newcomers like Liu Pan, since experienced counselors are unwilling to do such a thankless task."

"On the other hand, this can also serve as an experiment for a new way to make money. If it proves feasible, it can be used for all clients in similar situations in the future, while also avoiding the harm that transference causes to the counselor. No, not only that, but even counseling can be done less seriously... Their counselors only need to please the family members!"

Nan Zhuren's brows furrowed deeply.

From a technical point of view, this seems to be a more effective and more covert way to make money through consultation than drug control!

Huang Xin nodded, reminding him, "It's obvious that now is the time for you to verify the results of your experiment. This morning, the teacher already called and asked Liu Pan to contact Li Minglu's family again. I can think of two possibilities—"

Perhaps because his fingers had finally warmed up a bit in his pocket, Huang Xin was finally able to stick them out and slowly extend an index finger in front of Nan Zhuren.

"First, the client's family member received extremely high emotional value from the previous therapist, but this was ignored with you, which will make her extremely dissatisfied and thus interfere with your counseling process."

Not really.

In the normal course of the process, when a visitor's family brings the visitor to their home, the consultation and intervention are usually just a matter of having someone pour a cup of tea, which is considered a reception.

Even if you have an assistant or receptionist chat with him occasionally, it will never have the same effect as Liu Pan's work—after all, he has received systematic psychological counseling education, and no matter how bad he is, he is at least half a psychological counselor.

Unless a proper counselor is hired to provide consultation, but as mentioned before, it's a thankless task, and no one is willing to do it.

At the same time, a counselor may be good at "consulting" but not necessarily good at "chatting".

Many friends who work in psychology complain, "You're a psychology student, why can't you be more tolerant of me when we chat?"

But the counselor might be thinking, "I charge by the hour for chatting with people, are you going to pay me?"

Those who study literature don't always rhyme when they speak; those who study dance don't always walk in circles; and those who study medicine don't always go and treat people who might be sick on the street.

Similarly, not everyone who studies psychology is a good speaker.

If so, it either means that the person is a good person, or that they haven't done enough consultations on weekdays, or that the person has learned new consultation techniques and is using you as a free guinea pig.

This kind of work is really best suited for someone like Liu Pan.

Nan Zhuren was thinking.

Huang Xin slowly extended his second finger.

"Secondly, there is another possibility."

(End of this chapter)