Who would study psychology unless they had some issues?!

Director He shook her head: "We can’t adjust the medication now."

After thinking for a moment, she began to explain to the girl in front of her, also to mentally prepare her for future medication.

"Generally speaking, I’ll start you on a small dose first, and then you’ll have to come back in about two to four weeks to adjust the medication."

"During this time, we’ll mainly observe two things: first, whether your body can adapt, like if you experience nausea or drowsiness; second, whether this dosage has some effect on you. If there are no significant side effects and the effect isn’t sufficient, I might increase the dosage once in two to four weeks."

"Once we find the dosage that works best for you and has acceptable side effects, your condition will gradually stabilize. Then you won’t need to come so frequently, about once every month or two to three months for a follow-up. This stage is mainly for maintenance treatment, observing long-term effects."

"In the later stages, if your condition has been stable for a long time, say over a year, we might try to gradually reduce the medication. However, this process will take longer, sometimes it takes several months or even more than a year to stop one medication."

The girl seemed a bit disappointed, but faced with Director He’s serious tone, she could only nod.

"Never suddenly stop taking your medication on your own, otherwise you could easily experience withdrawal or a relapse of your condition."

Director He added, then started tapping on the keyboard, modifying some details above. Once everything was done, the printer beside her started working, slowly producing a slip.

"Take this slip to get your medication dispensed." Director He paused, then asked, "Are you still doing the psychological consultation, or do you want to?"

The girl shook her head: "I don’t want to."

Director He nodded: "Okay, then don’t do it, just take the medication first."

"—But girl, please don’t harm yourself again, do you understand?"

The clinic was silent for two seconds.

The girl softly responded, "Hmm."

Then she took the slip, stood up ready to leave, but involuntarily stopped.

"Um... Doctor, I have a friend who seems to want to do a psychological consultation. I want to ask..."

"Then have her come over and get a slip. Here, psychological consultations can, if everything goes smoothly, be started on the same day." Director He waved her hand: "Let her come early, preferably in the morning."

"No, don’t we have a lot of consultants here? I want to ask which consultant is suitable for her situation. She’s kind of like this..."

Before the girl could continue, Director He waved to interrupt: "What you’re telling me now doesn’t count. Her situation needs to be discussed with me directly. Do you understand what I mean?"

"...I understand."

This time the girl truly left.

As the door closed with a soft "click," Director He’s expression changed completely as if refreshed.

The seriousness and concern she had shown the patient, the exaggerated surprise during the small talk, and so on, disappeared.

She returned to the demeanor Nan Zhubin and others saw when they first came in.

Nan Zhubin glanced at his phone; only ten minutes had passed.

...

When Director He was tapping on the keyboard earlier, the affable senior student kept leaning towards Nan Zhubin, as if unable to hold back something.

Seeing the patient leave at this moment, he finally couldn’t resist quietly commenting to Nan Zhubin: "What do you think of Director He?"

"What do you mean?" Nan Zhubin glanced at Director He, who was sorting out electronic medical records, and responded quietly.

"Just the feel of her outpatient service."

"Director He... how to put it." The affable senior student’s lips almost didn’t move, using the sound of the keyboard tapping as cover, "It feels very ’rigid.’

"Just in that short while, whether it’s her ’Support,’ her ’Positive Attention,’ or her ’Psychoeducation.’"

"It’s all... too rigid."

Nan Zhubin didn’t comment.

Actually, during that short while, he also had many questions in his mind. But all the questions also got resolved during that final bit of prescription and the inquiry about whether a psychological consultation was needed.

Everyone just did their job.

In less than ten minutes of consultation, there really wasn’t anything else that could be done.

And the affable senior student seemed to just want to find a topic as a start and then continued to answer his own question like talking to himself.

"But after all, it’s a psychiatric clinic... Is this how psychiatric clinics are, quite different from psychological consultations."

Research students can quickly convince themselves. If there’s a problem while the director, who is conducting the consultation, surely it’s an issue with their own cognition and assumptions, not the director’s.

And immediately, the affable senior student had a new topic.

"This girl... she is doing much better than I thought."

After all, they had a brief encounter downstairs, and this patient visually gave a strong impression to the affable senior student.

Now, feeling calm and through a deeper understanding of the consultation process, the affable senior student felt a bit relaxed.

He suddenly said, "I feel that this girl, as a patient in the clinic, she is quite alright."

"As a visitor, it is indeed quite challenging, but it is not impossible. Although she self-harms and has suicidal thoughts, she is willing to talk and answer the doctor’s questions, which indicates she still has the motivation to seek help."

Nan Zhubin slightly turned his head to look at him.

The affable senior student continued, "When I was in my first year of the graduate program, I worked part-time at the Psychological Consultation Center for a year."