The National Council of YMCAs - YWCAs of China held a professional lecture on dealing with depression, which was the fifth session in a training series called "Responsibility in Social Development".
On November 5, Wu Jianrong, general secretary of YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), expressed his affirmation for the effective response and participation in COVID-19 prevention and control by ten local YMCA - YWCA branches despite the current challenges brought about by recent outbreaks. He said that among the 20 "Y-creative projects" (social service innovation and advocacy projects) launched this year on Tencent’s 99 Giving Day, 14 had been carried out in various cities, which demonstrated that the projects had met the needs of society and showed that the staff needed to improve their professional capabilities, according to YMCA and YWCA.
In the seminar, Mr. Chen Ding, a professional psychological consultant was invited to give a lecture on "Eliminating Discrimination in Depression: An Emotional and Mental Health Lesson on Well-Being". Starting from the common misunderstanding of mental health, he initially corrected the public misconception of depression, using the right and wrong questions to interact with the audience. Chen shared about which skills are important when helping someone with depression as well as many practical concepts, involving how to manage emotions and deal with psychological crises, to explain the importance of "adaptation". He also mentioned that flexible selection of an appropriate strategy was the most critical factor to adapt oneself to living with others or deal with the pressure and negative emotions.
Through mindfulness experiments, Chen guided attendees not to be trapped in the past or to worry about the future, but to live in the present, relaxing and releasing stress. Starting with eight mistakes often made when helping people with depression, Mr. Chen introduced the value concept that they could adopt and the countermeasures to prevent depression when dealing with client problems in the service process, so as to better help social workers to provide professional services.
At the end of the seminar, members of local YMCA - YWCAs shared their insight on the training.
A participant said, "The lecture is very practical, as it has not only provided us with methods and ideas in actual work but also given me great inspiration in life to keep growing: accepting myself instead of fighting myself; accepting difficulties and imperfections to ease the pain; not striving for unattainable goals in life; doing what I like to avoid wasting energy. The words are filled with wisdom to release myself by getting used to imperfect things."
"We still have a lot of misunderstanding about depression in our lives, which is often the biggest reason why depressive patients cannot get effective help and timely treatment. Through this training, I learn that depression is not an incurable disease, as many methods can be used to treat it. And we know that there are countless people who have won the battle against the disease and now live a stable and happy life."
- Translated by Abigail Wu
