In order to carry out planned psychology-themed teaching activities and lectures and help college students form healthy views of trauma and death under the current circumstances, Ms. Li Yumei, a teaching staff member from Emei Counseling Department of the Psychological Research and Counseling Center (PRCC) of Southwest Jiaotong University gave a psychology-themed online lecture entitled “Tenderness and Love—Different Trauma and Death from a Narrative Perspective” at 3 PM on April 2nd.
As an introduction, Ms. Li shared two cases: one is a video showing the virtual-reality reunion of a Korean mother with her 7-year-old daughter who passed away due to leukemia; and the other is one of Ms. Li’s own counseling encounters where a boy expressed how he missed his late grandma who was killed in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and how much pain he was suffering. The two cases on the one hand showed how common trauma and death are, and on the other hand, highlighted why we must approach trauma and death differently—which was also the purpose of the lecture.
Ms. Li began with a definition of the narrative perspective: a new perspective helping people see the important values of life based on the warmth of empathy and the company of emotions. So how do we view death through this new perspective? Ms. Li then stressed: to begin, we must first face and learn to accept the fact, namely, saying hello again to the story of loss and death. Then we need to learn to detach from the pain and try to see, feel and dig deeper into our common experiences with the deceased. For instance, the good traits of them and how they’ve influenced our growth. The best way to cope is to carry on the good traits and merits of them from our memories. This will not only strengthen and empower ourselves, but also become a source of positive and upbeat influence on those around us. In that way, the sealed stories will flow once again. Ms. Li then further explained the key points of the narrative perspective towards death after listening to the stories shared by the students and helped the students gain a better understanding of the topic.
Following how we should view death, Ms. Li introduced the narrative perspective towards trauma. As a lead-in, she showed the students the resilience of people in the face of trauma and how hard it could be. Ms. Li went on with a key concept in narrative perspectives: double stories. We must see not only the negative stories, but also the rare and hard-to-come-by stories and try to see in these stories how we took care of ourselves, how we lived our lives and how we carried on with schooling and work. Likewise, Ms. Li asked students to share a personal traumatic experience to help them get a clearer picture of the concepts.
This brought the themed lecture on psychology to a successful end.
