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

Chapter 611 The Brief Decline of Materialism

The visitor's account continued, and the descriptions became so detailed that they began to provide examples:
"Grandma Zhao, she has a ring of red marks around her neck. She says it's the Dragon King's tassel, and he put it on her!"

"There's also an old man named Li, whose back is covered in large red spots. They say those are 'dragon coil patterns,' meaning the Dragon King has appeared and chosen them!"

"They...they worship the Dragon King at noon and in the evening...using a makeshift wooden tablet, burning whatever they can find, filling the air with smoke, and humming strange tunes in their local dialect..."

“Every time they finish their worship, they become more energetic, and the ‘marks’ on some of the grandparents become more pronounced. They say they have been chosen…”

The more they talk, the more timid the visitor becomes.

In the end, even the coherence of her sentences began to be interrupted from time to time by her rapid breathing, and her whole body began to tremble slightly.

Nan Zhuren is currently focusing on the micro-expression reactions of visitors while they are telling their stories.

[His eyes darted around, accompanied by rapid blinking.]

[Each time a deep breath causes a pause in the narration, there is a clenching and inward squeezing of the lips.]

When words related to faith are mentioned, the eyebrows rise and converge inward very quickly.

Is it tension, pain, doubt... or fear?

The micro-expressions on a visitor's face are very complex, and the corresponding emotions can be varied.

It is difficult to make a judgment without establishing a personal baseline.

But Nan Zhuren didn't need to make such detailed distinctions; he had already gotten what he wanted.

However, for the sake of thoroughness, Nan Zhuren asked a few more questions to ascertain the visitor's current state.

Nan Zhuren thought for a moment and said, "According to the files I have here, you talked about this with your ideological instructor before. What did he say?"

The visitor pursed his lips: "He said it's a local culture, and it's all normal... The old man's skin condition is also a skin disease. The instructor criticized me for being paranoid."

Nan Zhuren pressed further, "What do you think of what the instructor said?"

“I think it makes sense and can be explained,” the visitor murmured. “But after talking with the instructor, when I go back to my post and look at those elderly people again… I feel that it’s strange… there are still some things that I can’t quite explain.”

Nan Zhuren nodded, confirming part of it.

He then asked, "Your official political identity is that of a Party member, right?"

The visitor nodded: "Yes."

"So, do you think this world is materialistic or idealistic?"

“Materialism…” the visitor almost blurted out, but then drew out the last syllable of the word.

Nan Zhuren nodded, confirming the visitor's situation.

Psychological intervention is much faster than psychological counseling. By combining file materials and micro-expression analysis, Nan Zhuren can also save a lot of time in collecting information through conversations.

In a typical psychological counseling setting, it might take two or three sessions to achieve the current level of information gathering.

Nan Zhuren paused slightly, organizing his thoughts.

……

Just as Nan Zhuren had initially thought, this client's problem was indeed rare in the consultation room.

But the fundamental principle remains the same: no matter how complex a problem is, it can be simplified once its essence is understood.

Nan Zhuren doesn't need to delve into medical knowledge or regional culture—psychological issues ultimately come down to the individual.

No matter how unpredictable or complicated things are happening around the visitor, the first thing to do is always to focus on the visitor's feelings.

Nan Zhuren asked, "You are usually responsible for taking care of those elderly people, and you just described a scene that left a deep impression on you."

"What I'm curious about is—when you first found yourself in that environment, seeing those marks and hearing those strange tunes, what was your first reaction?"

Nan Zhuren waved his hand in an exaggerated manner, making a gesture of sweeping away everything: "Put aside all analysis and judgment, just your most direct feeling."

The client has undoubtedly experienced considerable criticism in past conversations. By focusing on the client's own feelings, a foundational counseling relationship can be established, laying the groundwork for subsequent intervention.

At the same time, Nan Zhuren's intervention also needed a breakthrough.

The visitor paused for a moment after hearing Nan Zhuren's question.

It seems that before, very few people, or almost no one, asked her this question.

The visitor's rapid breathing calmed down and gradually became long, while closing their eyes and beginning to recall and feel themselves.

After three breaths, the visitor slowly said, "I feel...it's very difficult."

The answer was very brief. After giving this answer, the visitor looked up at Nan Zhuren, as if trying to confirm something.

Nan Zhuren did not reply, but looked at the other person with encouraging eyes.

"I feel... that the work is very difficult to carry out."

After saying this, the visitor fell silent, so Nan Zhuren gave it another nudge: "It sounds like your job is very difficult?"

This question struck a chord with the visitor.

"It's not that it's difficult... Everyone's job is like this, everyone has a tough time, but..."

The visitor looked up at Nan Zhuren: "...But, maybe it's because of me. I already have difficulty communicating with the elderly, and with the added difference in regional culture, it's even more impossible to communicate. Many times... I feel like the supplies I bring, my words of comfort, are like a layer of glass between us, impossible to penetrate..."

Nan Zhuren nodded again with an exaggerated gesture, indicating that he understood and agreed.

He then offered some interpretation of the visitor's words: "You sound like a well-intentioned 'outsider' who wants to help them—may I describe you that way?"

The visitor's eyes lit up, and he nodded vigorously, saying, "Yes, 'outsider,' that's exactly how I feel!"

Nan Zhuren frowned slightly and pursed his lips: "'Outsider' seems to resonate with you a lot—but I don't know what you think. When I heard that term, my first feeling was loneliness and helplessness."

He looked sincerely at the visitor: "After all, you're here to help them, but it sounds like they're unwilling to accept it? That must be very upsetting for you."

As soon as the words came out.

It happened very abruptly, but also within Nan Zhuren's expectations.

The visitor's eyes visibly reddened. It was unclear whether it was due to Nan Zhuren's understanding or the memory of some unbearable past experiences.

"I feel...powerless...utterly powerless..."

The tears welled up in the visitor's eyes and slowly slid down: "All the crisis intervention and grief counseling training we received before coming here was completely useless... The grandparents think I'm in the way, and my supervisor thinks I'm not capable enough. I can't do either well, so I have to find a solution myself..."

As she spoke, she began to sob softly.

The client in front of me has a completely different work environment from Team Leader Li, so their state during the consultation is also significantly different.

Nan Zhuren placed her hand on a small pack of tissues on her desk and moved it in front of the visitor—luckily, Nan Zhuren had a habit of carrying tissues with her, otherwise dealing with this situation in an unfamiliar environment would have been quite troublesome.

After waiting for the visitor to calm down a bit, Nan Zhuren asked, "I can tell you've had a tough time. You said you tried to find solutions on your own afterwards, what did you do?"

The visitor wiped his eyes.

At this moment, her speech quickened, as if she were demonstrating something, or perhaps showing off something: "I've never told my superiors this before, and they don't have the patience to listen to these things..."

The visitor took a deep breath: "I... I started trying to understand those grandpas and grandmas. When I went home at night, I used my rest time to look up the local chronicles of the area where those grandpas and grandmas lived, and to find information about the Dragon King belief and folk sacrifices."

“I also spend more of my free time chatting with the elderly folks I can talk to about this faith. They have a lot to say about it, and they’ve finally started communicating with me…”

Nan Zhuren's eyes lit up.

He heard what he wanted.

But that wasn't enough. Nan Zhuren thought for a moment and continued to guide her: "In psychology, we use a technique called 'empathy.' Simply put, this technique is about putting yourself in someone else's shoes and feeling what they feel."

Nan Zhuren pointed his palm upward at the visitor and praised, "What you said is in line with a very advanced technique of empathy."

"When faced with something you don't understand, you don't deny it, but try to enter their world of thought. This requires immense humility and an open mind!"

Nan Zhuren looked into the visitor's eyes: "So, was the process smooth? Did you successfully get in?"

This question made the visitor swallow hard.

The visitor said, “I…I don’t know. At first, I felt like I was getting a little bit of it. When I looked at those ‘dragon patterns’ again, I no longer thought of them as skin diseases; I tried to feel the possible sacredness behind them.”

"When I heard them praying again, I no longer just felt panicked; I tried to understand their sorrow and prayers, and I even tried to join in."

“But, but later…” the visitor looked up at Nan Zhuren, “things started to get strange.”

Nan Zhuren raised an eyebrow: "Strange?"

The visitor swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and exhaled heavily: "I... I'm starting to have trouble sleeping. Every time I close my eyes, all I see is smoke and those marks. When I walk around the resettlement site during the day, if I see water, I think of the Dragon King; if I hear the wind, I think it's the roar of a dragon."

“The night before last, I was out on patrol, listening to their ritual, looking at the incense and the smoke…”

The visitor's lips trembled: "I... I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my arm. I looked down instinctively, but there was nothing there. But, but, that's exactly where some grandmothers have 'dragon scale patterns'... I feel like I'm going to get them too!"

The visitor's words were strange.

But Nan Zhuren felt a sense of relief.

He found the breakthrough he was looking for.

Then we saw Nan Zhuren put away his worried and encouraging expression and put on a calm smile instead.

He said to the visitor, “I understand. You’ve become so deeply empathetic in trying to understand the disaster victims that you’ve gone too far, exceeding your professional boundaries and turning it into a pathological form of identification.”

"You've become too immersed in the role, and because you already have a heavy cognitive load at work, it has caused confusion in your sense of identity and disorder in your perception of reality, which has led to a certain degree of physical reaction."

……

Nan Zhuren rattled off a whole bunch of technical terms in one go.

This is the main theme he chose during the intervention phase.

From the very beginning, Nan Zhuren was trying to determine whether the visitor was a true "believer" whose thinking had changed, or simply a "lost person" who was deeply confused.

Micro-expression analysis provided the answer for Nan Zhuren.

In his eyes, the visitor was tense, uneasy, and even fearful when talking about things related to the "Dragon King".

If someone is a "believer," they would never react this way—the visitor should be focused, expectant, or even excited.

Therefore, the visitor is simply a "confused person," and the problem is reduced to the level of "cognitive dissonance."

That makes it easy to handle.

……

“You are a very responsible person,” Nan Zhuren first affirmed the visitor. “I also thank you for describing all of this so bravely and clearly.”

"You wanted to delve into the inner world of those elderly disaster victims and learn about their backgrounds and culture as a staff member; your starting point was good, but—you got too involved."

The visitor blinked as he listened.

Nan Zhuren continued, "In your attempt to understand those elderly people, you over-utilized your cognitive resources, to the point that they temporarily overwhelmed your reality testing ability and sense of self-identity."

“You don’t truly believe in the Dragon King, but you long to ‘believe’ like them, because only then can you escape the feeling of powerlessness as an ‘outsider’.”

"At the same time, you are not accepted by the elderly and are under pressure from your superiors, which makes you sink deeper and yearn to find a spiritual sustenance."

"This intense desire, coupled with extreme physical and mental exhaustion, led to a brief period of confusion in your perception of reality."

Nan Zhuren continued to hurl a barrage of technical jargon, regardless of whether the visitors understood it or not.

Faced with this kind of confused and wavering cognitive dissonance, the most effective way to "treat the symptoms" right now is to bombard people with cognitive information all at once.

Squeeze out the strange and wonderful things that the other person had previously stuffed into their brain, and knead them back into their own shape.

Of course, knocking the other party unconscious is just for better maneuvering later.

Seeing that the visitor was already struggling to absorb the information, Nan Zhuren finally explained in simpler terms: "Simply put, your brain, under excessive empathy and extreme fatigue, has undergone a simulated test of faith to its limits."

"But now, it's a bit 'crashed' and can't find its way back to reality."

(End of this chapter)