Psychological assistance for public during the pandemic of COVID-19

Submission Deadline: 15 May 2020 (closed)

Guest Editors

Mingyi Qian
Professor (Emeritus), School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University
The World Council for Psychotherapy (Fellow)
Chinese Psychological Society (Fellow)
Chinese Association of Mental Health

Rodney K. Goodyear
Professor, Director, Center for Advanced Professional Education, School of Education, University of Redlands
American Psychological Association (Fellow)
Division 17: Counseling Psychology (Fellow)
Division 29: Psychotherapy (Fellow)

Guangrong Jiang
Professor, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University
Council member, Chinese Psychological Society (CPS)
Council member, Ministry of Education College mental health education expert committee
Director, Clinical and Counseling Psychology Committee of CPS

Zhihong Ren
Professor and Doctoral Supervisor, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University
Member of the Professional Committee on Clinical and Counseling Psychology of CPS

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Summary

The pandemic of COVID-19 has posted great challenges to all aspects of human life, communities and societies. Psychology as a discipline and as a profession all of a sudden found itself facing an unprecedented need to understand, design and deliver effective psychological services to a vast number of people from all walks of life in middle of an extraordinary international crisis. During the early phase of the intense fight against the pandemic, psychological professionals in China mobilized its human as well as technological resources and engaged themselves in new and renovated ways of helping the citizens reduce panic, stress and distress in relation to the outbreak of the pandemic. In a short few months, multiple psychological service forms were built and tested out.

This special issue is proposed to provide readers information about what had been observed and had been done by the psychological community to understand and help during the pandemic, about the processes and operations involved in those service establishments, about outcome research concerning the efficacy of this helping modality, about advantages and challenges to increase accessibility to all people who need help, and about training and supervision challenges involved in ensuring quality of service. The purpose is to share experience as well as lessons learned to our international communities in assisting their effort to provide needed psychological service to our global citizens in the similar circumstance.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

1) The impact of the pandemic on the mental health status of different population group;

2) The experience of establishment of the mental health service during the pandemic;

3) The issues in relate to the service quality during this crisis;

4) The effective of different forms of psychological intervention during the pandemic;

5) The experience that worth to share to help the residents to maintain mental health during the pandemic.

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Keywords

Psychological service; Psychological hotline; Mental health; COVID-19; Psychological online service; Training; Supervision; Service quality

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Published Papers

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