With the rapid development of the economy and society, the mental health issues of contemporary people are receiving more and more attention from the country. What are the mental health problems of the people in Jinchang? What is the percentage of depression patients? How many people are in a sub-healthy mental state? Currently, there is no authoritative statistical data on this. However, the mental health service work in Jinchang has been ongoing, with both government departments and social organizations carrying out related work. Luo Qingjun is one of the outstanding figures in this regard. He is a guest lecturer at Peking University, a master’s supervisor at Jinan University, and has carried out various psychological service work in many parts of the country, and participated in the drafting of multiple psychological policy documents. In 2023, his 7 policy recommendations and research reports on mental health were adopted by departments above the provincial level and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. In 2024, his new books “Parent Awakening – Parenting Philosophy” and “Parent Awakening – Parenting Strategies” will be published. He is also the president of the Jinchang Mental Aid Association and the operational leader of the Jinchuan District Social Psychological Service Guidance Center.
Jinchang Mental Aid Association Luo Qingjun
Today, please follow the reporter to learn about Luo Qingjun and his team, and the story of guarding “the heart of Jinchang”.
May I be the grass that forgets worries in your “heart”.
Luo Qingjun’s “headquarters” for his career is in Jinan, Shandong. He works in other provinces all year round. A few years ago, when he returned to Jinchang to visit relatives, a relative with a worried look asked for his help: their child started to hate school and skip classes in junior high school, then began to have emotional outbursts and self-harm, and stopped going to school directly after high school. The couple tried everything, but nothing worked. After hearing about Luo Qingjun’s profession, they asked him for help with a trial mentality. After several sessions of help and intervention by Luo Qingjun, the child returned to the classroom smoothly, and two years later, they successfully entered a good university. After the visit, Luo Qingjun learned that the child had been doing well all along.
In his hometown of Jinchang, Luo Qingjun has successfully helped more and more people solve psychological problems. He has gradually established a good reputation, and with his deep professional background and rich practical experience, the Municipal Women’s Federation, Jinchuan District Party and Law Committee, Yongchang County Propaganda Department, and other departments and units have invited him to give lectures on psychological health knowledge.
In his work, Luo Qingjun found that although Jinchang is also carrying out some psychological counseling services, there is still a big gap compared to the actual needs. Whether it is adults or adolescents, when faced with psychological issues, people feel lost and unsure, not considering mental health at the first moment, nor knowing who to seek help from. Many people directly equate psychological distress with depression and mental illness, thinking that actively seeking a counselor is equivalent to admitting to having mental issues. At the same time, the levels of local psychological counselors vary greatly, lacking a platform for counselors to communicate with the public, making it difficult for people with needs to contact a professional counselor in a timely manner, resulting in the exacerbation of some psychological problems.
Luo Qingjun is training for Jinchuan District
Faced with this situation, Luo Qingjun wanted to do something for the people in his hometown. After several negotiations and communications with Jinchuan District, in April 2023, he led his team to settle in the Jinchuan District Social Psychological Service Guidance Center, responsible for the operation of the center, assisting in improving mechanisms, coordinating resources, integrating excellent psychological counselors in Jinchuan District into a “volunteer mental team,” and carrying out social psychological services throughout the district.
Entering the Jinchuan District Social Psychological Service Guidance Center located on the second floor of the Comprehensive Management Center in Jinchuan District, a warm and elegant atmosphere greets visitors. The seven functional rooms, including the reception and inquiry room, service counseling room, and psychological assessment room, each serve a distinct purpose. Staff provide psychological counseling over the phone, or face-to-face counseling with visitors, making it the first relatively large-scale social psychological service center in the province. Over the past year, the center has received a total of 210 calls on the psychological hotline, conducted one-on-one psychological counseling for 167 individuals, provided mental health services to 54 key community populations, and organized 62 offline psychological popular science activities.
Additionally, combining public welfare activities, Luo Qingjun led three psychological consultants from the Chinese Psychological Society to independently fund and donate 20,000 RMB to economically disadvantaged individuals in Ningyuanbao Town, Jinchuan District, and the “Children’s Heart to the Future” project in Jinchuan District. This not only comforted the spirits of the troubled masses but also provided material assistance, truly helping them out of their predicament.
“Hearts have a thousand knots, who will untie them.”
Every heart has its knots. In real life, people always encounter unsolvable knots and cannot escape from their predicaments. Those who appear carefree on the surface, no one knows how long they have been struggling in the dark of the night.
One day in May 2023 at noon, Luo Qingjun received a distress call: in a certain neighborhood in Jinchuan District, a person, codenamed Xiao Ai, was sitting on the window sill of the bedroom, with the bedroom door locked from the outside, preparing to commit suicide. At that time, the local police station, fire department, women’s federation, community, and other relevant personnel had all arrived at the scene. Xiao Ai was in an agitated state and resistant to the persuasion of everyone.
Accompanied by staff from the District Comprehensive Management Center, Luo Qingjun quickly reached Xiao Ai’s home and roughly understood the reasons from the family members: Xiao Ai wanted a divorce, but her husband and both families disagreed. On that day, she was reprimanded by her father. In the subsequent persuasion and psychological intervention, Luo Qingjun not only did not immediately persuade Xiao Ai to give up the idea of suicide and leave the dangerous area, but fully understood her feelings, respected her choices, slowly resolved her grievances and impulses, and used professional strategies to help her let go of her obsession and leave the bedroom.
Luo Qingjun saved Xiao Ai, but in the past few years, some depression patients in Jinchang had permanently left their families. Luo Qingjun said that almost no one wants to end their life easily. Behind most suicides is not a desire to die, but an inability to resolve inner turmoil. At the time, when the person is in a predicament, the misunderstanding and wrong actions of the people around them often become the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
“So it is very important in Jinchang to increase the popularization of mental health knowledge, to make everyone face psychological problems positively, and understand that it is very normal for ‘hearts’ to get sick just like ‘bodies.’ I want to hand them a key to unlock their hearts when they encounter difficulties,” Luo Qingjun said.
“With thousands of knots in the heart, I untie them.” Since its establishment, the Jinchuan District Social Psychological Service Center has continuously provided “psychological” energy to party and government organs, enterprises and institutions, schools, and families across the district. Following the working mechanism of “center leading, two hotlines connecting, multiple sites covering,” it has strengthened and improved the three-level psychological service network of district, town (street), and village (community), adopting the grassroots “ordering” and center “dispatching” model to provide psychological service support to towns (streets) and villages (communities).
Establish the “Heart Healing” brand in Jinchang
In July 2023, under the guidance of the Jinchang Municipal Women’s Federation, Luo Qingjun integrated the psychological counseling service resources of Jinchang City, and established the Jinchang City Mental Aid Association, absorbing over 80% of the psychological counselors in the city into the association, making the city’s psychological counseling work from scattered to integrated, forming a greater synergy, and further promoting psychological services for minors and women.
Establishment of the Jinchang City Mental Aid Association
Luo Qingjun led the members of the Jinchang City Mental Aid Association to conduct 46 sessions of the Jinchang City “Guardian Health · Escort Action” public welfare activities for minors; carried out public psychological evaluations for 510 people; provided one-on-one psychological counseling and care for 30 individuals, focusing on 10 key individuals. At the same time, he expanded online channels for psychological popularization, recorded more than 40 episodes of psychological popular science short videos, and widely promoted them on platforms such as Science Popularization in China, Weibo Health, Phoenix Net, and the Jinchang City Women’s Federation video account, reaching over a million readers and increasing the coverage of “mental public” information.
Luo Qingjun Group Psychological Counseling Activity
In 2024, the “Teacher Luo’s Psychological Roundtable” branded psychological service conducted both online and offline, releasing 22 episodes of special videos on mental health topics, including psychological assessments, emotional care, group counseling, and mental health lectures for minors. These provide professional and practical services, and have conducted a large-scale group psychological counseling event, 1 family education and minor mental health lecture, 5 psychological group counseling salons, and recorded 20 psychological popular science short videos, reaching 65,000 parents.
In addition, Luo Qingjun and his team actively connected with high-quality resources from other provinces to conduct public welfare psychological counseling for Jinchang and other places in the province. In 2023 and 2024, Luo Qingjun led psychological experts from Shanghai and Chengdu to conduct public welfare psychological counseling in Jinchuan District, providing public welfare psychological support and counseling to 70 minors and families, which received unanimous acclaim from the public. After the earthquake in Jishishan, he and personnel from the Shandong Psychological Society went to Jishishan for a week of post-earthquake psychological aid.
Luo Qingjun said, “When facing local counselors, everyone is more or less concerned about their privacy being known by others. Having counselors from other provinces provide services dispels the concerns of the service recipients, making them more actively seek psychological help.”
While carrying out routine work, Luo Qingjun has distilled the essence of Chinese traditional culture, such as integrating health concepts from “If joy and anger are not regulated, the organ will be harmed, and when the organ is harmed, the disease begins with the yin” and attitudes toward learning from “The essence of effort, nothing else can achieve, is called focus,” subtly integrating them into psychological health services and applying them in practice, highlighting their distinctiveness and nurturing the modern mind with the wisdom of our ancestors.
Luo Qingjun gives a psychological lecture to female cadres in the city
Now, the 24-hour open psychological counseling service hotline 0935-8321280 in Jinchuan District has been stored in various ways by parents and students; some parents, with anxiety and helplessness, have walked into the Jinchuan District Social Psychological Service Guidance Center and walked out with relaxed brows after receiving help; groups of innocent and lovely children wrote down their dreams on “paper planes” and flew them under the blue sky and white clouds; psychological health knowledge lectures for organs and leading cadres are underway…
Mental health and mental hygiene are important components of public health, major livelihood issues, and prominent social issues. With the active efforts of various relevant departments in the city, and the efforts of Luo Qingjun and the majority of psychological services workers, “the heart of Jinchang” will surely be healthier, brighter, and inject continuous “mental” energy into the city’s journey to build a common prosperous and happy city.
