China's largest grief counseling operation for survivors of a natural disaster is in full swing, a week after an 8.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the southwestern Sichuan Province.
In a temporary residence for quake victims in Mianyang City, Dr. Wang Ningxia faced 8-year-old Qiao Xi, who was traumatized and unable to speak after her experience in the disaster.
Qiao Xi's mother lost four members of her family including her son, Qiao Xi's elder brother, in the quake. The formerly talkative girl hadn't spoken for a week.
"Do you still want to go to school? Would you want to go back to your school?" the psychologist asked.
The question won the first one-word response.
"Want," whispered the girl, who had been communicating with the simple body language of nodding for "yes" or shaking her head for "no."
Wang said that the session had achieved some success. But not all the cases she was treating in the quake zone progressed.
"I tried in vain to communicate with a mother who lost her daughter. She could not face the truth. She neither cried nor ate, " said Wang.
The doctor from the South West University of Science and Technology led 10 teachers and 34 students to offer counseling in Mianyang City.
Wang took out a questionnaire she had drafted and pleaded with Xinhua's reporters to help submit it to authorities, who have the power to hand out the questionnaire to survivors. "The questionnaire would help counselors locate victims who urgently need psychological treatment," said Wang.
There are at least 300 professional psychologists working in the quake zone, according to Xinhua's tally of medical staff sent by the Ministry of Health and a dozen medical institutes around the country.
A group of psychologists led by Zhang Yuqing, associate professor from the Psychological Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has carried out counseling for 1,000 school children in Beichuan County, closest to the epicenter of the earthquake.