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Stress relief for a younger generation
By Xu Wenwen |
January 20, 2011, Thursday
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RECLINING on a white sofa, a young volunteer closes his eyes and relaxes. As soft music flows through his headphones and a light flickers in time with the rhythm, it is the ideal time for a psychotherapist to talk to him and discover what causes him stress.
It is a multi-functional relaxing chair in the Juvenile Soul Garden, an official juvenile psychology center located in Hangzhou's Citizen Center in Qianjiang New Town. It will open to the public on Saturday.
The center is free of charge and involves 10 programs of mental intervention, such as the multi-functional relaxing chair, sand play and a catharsis corner (where people can release tension by beating a human-sized punchbag).
These games, jointly developed by the Hangzhou municipal government and Hangzhou No. 7 Hospital, focus on relieving young people's negative emotions in the hope of preventing them from anti-social behavior and crime.
Parents' problem
"We focus on preventing juvenile crime, which is more important than dealing with crimes after they have happened," said Song Jiannan, director of Soul Garden and senior psychological counselor.
Rising juvenile delinquency in China has been a burning social issue for a long while, and much of the problem is attributed to the overindulgence in one-child family.
According to a survey issued by central office of juvenile deliquency prevention a couple of months ago, there are 28.2 million idle adolescents who are neither in school nor have a job despite being school age, and among those, 1.15 million have committed delinquent offences.
Experts explained the figures demonstrated that among all juveniles under 25 years old in China, one in 11 is idle, and one in 25 idle adolescents have been responsible for delinquent acts.
"Juvenile delinquency, like the 'Hu Bin case,' is not an individual case," said Song, "and I bet the number of similar cases will rise, because both the parents and children are less educated."
In 2000, 20-year-old Hu Bin, while driving at speed in a sports car, hit and fatally injured a 25-year-old man at a pedestrian crossing in Hangzhou.
He fled the scene of the accident. It was widely reported that Hu's father paid compensation to the victim's family, and then the case was closed.
"On one hand, many parents sabotage social rules, like Hu's father," said Song. "But on the other hand, kids from one-child families, usually have a temper when they are faced with setbacks."
Song cites an example. With the garden due to open soon, more than 100 children have booked programs so far, but some parents have called Song in the hope of jumping the queue.
"Those parents are breaking social rules. Kids are not learning from them, but losing social skills because they are convinced that their parents can settle everything."
Song explains that there are two kinds of juvenile delinquency - crimes of passion and group crime. While crimes of passion are committed due to anger and impulse, group crime is largely the result of peer pressure.
The games in the Soul Garden are designed to release negative emotions and check if the adolescent has criminal tendencies.
For instance, through a clamp connected to a computer and clipped onto a volunteer's earlobe, a tree is shown on a computer screen. If the leaves are blooming, it means the subject's mood is happy and calm. Conversely, the tree would be withered if the subject was sad or angry.
"The way to recover a normal mood is to adopt abdominal respiration," said Song. "By focussing on their breathing pattern, he or she will see how the tree turns green. The subject will then remember how to control their temper when he or she becomes angry in the future."
The Suggestibility Test is used to measure how susceptible the subject is.
Showing three identical bottles containing the same color liquid, a psychotherapist asks volunteers to smell and identify which one is water, and which are light alcohol and light vinegar.
"This is vinegar, that's alcohol, and this is water," a girl volunteer says firmly after carefully sampling the smell from each bottle.
However, the answer is they are all water. The girl is too impressionable to tell the truth.
"Some adolescents have no definite views of their own, and they simply follow others' words," said Song. "My suggestion is that juveniles should disprove others' words and find the answer in different ways."
Address: K Building, Citizen Center, Qianjiang New Town
Tel: (0571) 12355 ext 0
It is a multi-functional relaxing chair in the Juvenile Soul Garden, an official juvenile psychology center located in Hangzhou's Citizen Center in Qianjiang New Town. It will open to the public on Saturday.
The center is free of charge and involves 10 programs of mental intervention, such as the multi-functional relaxing chair, sand play and a catharsis corner (where people can release tension by beating a human-sized punchbag).
These games, jointly developed by the Hangzhou municipal government and Hangzhou No. 7 Hospital, focus on relieving young people's negative emotions in the hope of preventing them from anti-social behavior and crime.
Parents' problem
"We focus on preventing juvenile crime, which is more important than dealing with crimes after they have happened," said Song Jiannan, director of Soul Garden and senior psychological counselor.
Rising juvenile delinquency in China has been a burning social issue for a long while, and much of the problem is attributed to the overindulgence in one-child family.
According to a survey issued by central office of juvenile deliquency prevention a couple of months ago, there are 28.2 million idle adolescents who are neither in school nor have a job despite being school age, and among those, 1.15 million have committed delinquent offences.
Experts explained the figures demonstrated that among all juveniles under 25 years old in China, one in 11 is idle, and one in 25 idle adolescents have been responsible for delinquent acts.
"Juvenile delinquency, like the 'Hu Bin case,' is not an individual case," said Song, "and I bet the number of similar cases will rise, because both the parents and children are less educated."
In 2000, 20-year-old Hu Bin, while driving at speed in a sports car, hit and fatally injured a 25-year-old man at a pedestrian crossing in Hangzhou.
He fled the scene of the accident. It was widely reported that Hu's father paid compensation to the victim's family, and then the case was closed.
"On one hand, many parents sabotage social rules, like Hu's father," said Song. "But on the other hand, kids from one-child families, usually have a temper when they are faced with setbacks."
Song cites an example. With the garden due to open soon, more than 100 children have booked programs so far, but some parents have called Song in the hope of jumping the queue.
"Those parents are breaking social rules. Kids are not learning from them, but losing social skills because they are convinced that their parents can settle everything."
Song explains that there are two kinds of juvenile delinquency - crimes of passion and group crime. While crimes of passion are committed due to anger and impulse, group crime is largely the result of peer pressure.
The games in the Soul Garden are designed to release negative emotions and check if the adolescent has criminal tendencies.
For instance, through a clamp connected to a computer and clipped onto a volunteer's earlobe, a tree is shown on a computer screen. If the leaves are blooming, it means the subject's mood is happy and calm. Conversely, the tree would be withered if the subject was sad or angry.
"The way to recover a normal mood is to adopt abdominal respiration," said Song. "By focussing on their breathing pattern, he or she will see how the tree turns green. The subject will then remember how to control their temper when he or she becomes angry in the future."
The Suggestibility Test is used to measure how susceptible the subject is.
Showing three identical bottles containing the same color liquid, a psychotherapist asks volunteers to smell and identify which one is water, and which are light alcohol and light vinegar.
"This is vinegar, that's alcohol, and this is water," a girl volunteer says firmly after carefully sampling the smell from each bottle.
However, the answer is they are all water. The girl is too impressionable to tell the truth.
"Some adolescents have no definite views of their own, and they simply follow others' words," said Song. "My suggestion is that juveniles should disprove others' words and find the answer in different ways."
Address: K Building, Citizen Center, Qianjiang New Town
Tel: (0571) 12355 ext 0
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