Nan Zhubin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Can he do counseling for Teacher Xiao Zhao?
Let’s review a small piece of knowledge here — in psychological consultation, both parties can only have the relationship of "consultant and client." If any other similar relationships such as "colleague," "friend," or "family" exist outside the consultation, it would lead to a [dual relationship] or even [multiple relationships].
Under the influence of these additional relationships, it is extremely easy for both the client and the consultant to experience negative impacts on the consultation.
Looking at Teacher Xiao Zhao, Nan Zhubin observed her expression.
He lingered for a moment between her forehead and eyebrows.
"Alright." Nan Zhubin said.
He gestured for Teacher Xiao Zhao to sit in the client’s position, while he sat down on her right side.
Counseling among friends, colleagues, or family members under a [dual relationship] should absolutely not be conducted.
However, consultations under one type of relationship are an exception — that is between "consultant and consultant."
This scenario has a more professional term, not called [consultation] but — [supervision].
Supervision in Counseling is a professional guiding and support mechanism in the field of psychological consultation, where an experienced senior consultant serves as the supervisor, providing professional guidance, feedback, and evaluation to the less experienced consultant.
Besides "guiding consultation," supervision also has an important role in alleviating or even intervening a consultant’s own negative psychological state.
Teacher Xiao Zhao seems to very much need supervision at this moment.
Nan Zhubin’s gaze continued to hover between her forehead and eyebrows.
[Depressor muscles contracted, orbicularis oculi muscles contracted]
This was an expression that Teacher Xiao Zhao still had even when facing Nan Zhubin.
It’s worth noting that by now, Nan Zhubin has had a clear understanding of his talent in "alleviating negative emotions in the opposite sex even without doing anything."
At this moment, Teacher Xiao Zhao still stood in front of him, displaying this locked-brows, deeply-engrained frown.
She really needs someone to talk about psychological matters.
Moreover, Nan Zhubin remembered the first time he saw Teacher Xiao Zhao, before she recognized him, the expression and emotions maintained by her at work.
Teacher Xiao Zhao didn’t seem to expect Nan Zhubin to agree so readily, causing her to feel even a bit at a loss for a moment.
Fortunately, Nan Zhubin’s ability to maintain control of the situation was already well refined, quickly guiding Teacher Xiao Zhao into the state.
"We’ve been working together for some time now, I’m curious why you chose today to discuss things?"
Teacher Xiao Zhao revealed an embarrassed expression upon hearing that: "Weren’t you and Mr. Nan busy with formal work before... then you started consulting at the school today, so I thought I could ask for your help..."
Great, the conversation proceeded as Nan Zhubin had anticipated, this sentence revealed a lot of information, including part of Teacher Xiao Zhao’s personality.
And Nan Zhubin’s goal was to obtain the answer to the next question.
"So you’ve actually had some issues earlier that you wanted to address through consultation?"
Teacher Xiao Zhao fell silent for a moment upon hearing this – this was a brief [defense].
However, she is after all a professional.
"You can say so, I indeed wanted to find someone to talk to... no, wait."
Teacher Xiao Zhao smirked slightly: "I might have been [defensive] just now, I seem to have subconsciously avoided the word ’consultation,’ so I used ’talk’ instead."
"But in fact... I might really need ’consultation.’
She exhibited a form of vulnerability.
Psychology students who engage in consultation cases while still in school can experience various discomforts when suddenly participating in work outside.
The most crucial point being the loss of supervision from their mentors.
Psychology mentorship supervision during the school years is an extremely precious benefit, industry experts with multiple honors and intimidating titles patiently correcting students’ shortcomings, paying attention to their psychology.
But upon entering society, such corresponding treatments require spending money to hire professional supervision charging thousands per hour — and the professional level of these might not even exceed that of the teachers during school years.
Teacher Xiao Zhao, as a young psychology teacher who recently graduated, obviously wouldn’t have the financial condition for this.
Clearly, she’s currently experiencing this discomfort, accumulated over quite some time.
Nan Zhubin smiled at Teacher Xiao Zhao: "Actually, this isn’t really ’consultation,’ you can consider our current conversation as a form of [peer supervision]."
For those in the same profession, being more direct with terminology may have a better effect.
Nan Zhubin spread his hands and made a gesture of turning outward demonstratively: "So, what is the issue we are discussing today?"
Teacher Xiao Zhao’s gaze directed towards the space above Nan Zhubin’s head, appearing to be recalling.
Accompanied by a heavy sigh: "Uh... in general, I’d say the things I’ve encountered at work differ greatly from what I imagined, and I feel I’ve undergone many changes I did not wish to undergo."
Nan Zhubin’s attitude was between a consultation state and typical conversational state, his tone relatively lively. Comparatively, it was closer to the way he was when chatting in the car with Doctor Chen before.
"The things encountered at work, and undergoing many changes." Nan Zhubin nodded with pursed lips, displaying very noticeable changes in expression.
"It sounds like it includes a lot of content, so what’s the first thing that comes to your mind right now?"
A simple lead, Teacher Xiao Zhao’s ideas were quickly sorted.
She looked at Nan Zhubin’s face, suddenly smiling self-deprecatingly.
[Orbicularis oculi muscles naturally contracted.]
[Upward angle exceeded 30 degrees.]
[Duration exceeded 3 seconds...]
[Eyes not looking at me, emotion directed at herself, not me.]
It was indeed a [self-deprecating] smile, rather than one of [shyness].
"Do you remember the first time I saw you, Mr. Nan?"
"Hmm... objectively speaking, Mr. Nan, you are someone with a lot of appeal to the opposite sex."
Teacher Xiao Zhao openly stated something obvious but rarely expressed candidly.
"I had heard about you and those things about you at Jiang University — so I greatly admired you too."
"When I met you in person, I felt even more... something inside me was awakened."
"When I saw you, the first thing I did was go to the restroom to touch up my makeup, because I haven’t cared about my dressing for a long time. Or rather, I hadn’t cared about my social image in interactions with the opposite sex for a long time."
Exposing her inner feelings quite quickly.
Nan Zhubin followed up smoothly: "And why is that?"
Teacher Xiao Zhao sighed deeply: "Perhaps due to... some previous male students."
"When I first started working, I would deliberately dress maturely, trying to step away from the image of just having graduated undergraduate: like wearing mature coats in winter, applying a slightly more complex full makeup..."
"But soon..." Teacher Xiao Zhao sighed deeply, "I was confessed to by a male student unexpectedly."
Given Nan Zhubin’s age and experience, the interaction between him and Teacher Xiao Zhao was more akin to [peer supervision].