Several university students have committed suicide lately. These sad incidents make us all feel grief and sorrow. Some student counseling centers have said they are sometimes unable to help students in urgent need due to a shortage of staff.
Furthermore, despite the homeroom teacher system at most Taiwanese universities, lecturers are often too busy to offer assistance at critical moments.
These cases show that none of the students’ “tangible” significant others — such as lecturers, schoolmates, family members and close friends — were able to provide timely assistance.
Under such circumstances, perhaps we can turn to “intangible” significant others, such as mentors or counselors, to help to save young people suffering from emotional disturbances.
Such intangible spiritual teachers live in publications such as novels, illustrated books and self-help books, as well as audio and video resources such as music and movies.
The characters in such materials can serve as intangible counseling staff for university students, helping them to come back from the low points in their lives, and regain the inner power that they need to deal with a difficult situation.
This use of reading materials as assistance in emotional healing and the enhancement of mental health is called “bibliotherapy” or “healing reading.”
The concept that reading can soothe people’s mind goes far back in time, and the approach has been popular overseas for many years. For example, in May, the BBC’s 6 Minute English ran an episode titled “The soothing power of books,” introducing the concept of bibliotherapy.
Why can reading soothe our mind? There is nothing new under the sun: Many people have lived through similar hardships and suffering in the long history of human civilization. People of former times recorded their stories by putting them into words, music and songs.
Through interaction with such materials, readers can come to understand that they are not the only one suffering such hardship, and they can relate to the content with a sense of identification, which can help relieve the negative emotions accumulated in their hearts, thereby making it possible to permit the catharsis of emotions.
By seeing how the characters in these texts have solved their problems, readers might gain insights and learn how to solve their own emotional problems.
Based on this, every library, students’ counseling center and university department should set up a special corner with healing materials. It could be decorated as a warm and soothing space, so that students can at least have a shelter to go to at times when they are troubled and helpless.
In that corner, they can find their intangible significant others who are always willing to accompany, listen and empathize with them, while they share their happiness and sorrow with each other. By doing so, we might be able to catch one or more young people when they fall.
Some of Taiwan’s university and public libraries have already set up such sections, including National Tsing Hua University Library in Hsinchu City, National Chung Cheng University Library in Chiayi County, the Taichung Public Library and Taitung County’s Luye Township Library.
By applying this method, they uphold a humanitarian spirit and fulfill their social responsibility and serve as good examples to us all.
Chen Su-may Sheih is a professor at National Taiwan University’s Department of Library and Information Science.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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