Young Chinese Turn to Taobao for Psychological Support

年轻的中国人转向淘宝寻求心理支持

On Taobao, young Chinese can find plenty of people willing to help them talk through their mental health struggles for a fee. However, it is unclear where companionship ends and counseling begins.

在淘宝上，年轻的中国人可以找到很多愿意以费用帮助他们解决心理健康困扰的人。然而，伴侣关系何时结束，咨询关系何时开始并不清楚。

Du Xiaomiao, 29, launched her online chat service on e-commerce platform Taobao in April. For only 5 yuan ($0.69), clients can talk to Du about whatever they want for however long they want. Her store is called “tree hollow,” or shudong
, which refers to online spaces for people to express their anxieties and mental struggles.

杜晓苗，29岁，在4月份在电商平台淘宝上推出了她的在线聊天服务。客户只需支付5元人民币（0.69美元），就可以与杜晓苗畅谈他们想谈的任何事情，时间长短不限。她的店铺名为“树洞”，指的是人们表达焦虑和心理困扰的在线空间。
With each session usually lasting two to three hours, Du listens to customers as they share what has been bothering them and make confessions. From time to time, despite having no official counseling training, the financial planner offers clients her thoughts and advice.

每次咨询通常持续两到三个小时，杜女士倾听客户的烦恼和忏悔。尽管没有正式的咨询培训，这位理财规划师偶尔会向客户提供自己的想法和建议。
“I see many people stuck in their relationships
… Although I can’t help all of them, I try my best to help those I meet,” Du told Sixth Tone. She calls herself a “healer” rather than a counselor. 

“我看到很多人陷在他们的关系中...虽然我不能帮助所有人，但我尽力帮助那些我遇到的人，”杜告诉《第六声》。她自称为“治愈师”，而不是咨询师。

With loneliness and mental health issues on the rise among young Chinese, more and more people are turning to online chat services due to their affordability and convenience. The format suits “socially awkward” young Chinese who shy away from in-person interactions, as well as those that enjoy
the company of strangers based on common interests, part of the
dazi
social trend that has heated up in recent months. 

随着中国年轻人中的孤独感和心理健康问题日益增加，越来越多的人因为价格实惠和便利性而转向在线聊天服务。这种形式适合那些在面对面交流中感到不自在的中国年轻人，以及那些喜欢与志同道合的陌生人交往的人，这是最近几个月内热火朝天的大字社交趋势的一部分。
This has led to the explosion of services like Du’s on sites like Taobao, which advertise themselves as offering “companion chats” rather than traditional psychological counseling.

这导致了像淘宝上的Du这样的服务迅速增长，它们自称提供的是“陪伴聊天”，而不是传统的心理咨询。
Many of them claim to offer “comfort” and “guidance” in their advertising. However, the difference between the services they offer and psychological counseling is often not clear.

许多公司在广告中声称能够提供“舒适”和“指导”。然而，他们所提供的服务与心理咨询之间的区别往往不够明确。
Huang, 28, launched his online chat service on Taobao in mid-September. Within just a few weeks, he already has around 80 clients a day. Huang now employs around 40 staff members and is hiring more to meet excess demand.

黄先生今年28岁，在九月中旬在淘宝上推出了他的在线聊天服务。仅仅几周时间，他每天就已经有大约80个客户了。黄先生现在雇佣了大约40名员工，并且正在招聘更多人来满足过剩的需求。
“The market is continuously growing as it seems that, currently, many people need psychological support,” said Huang, who only gave his surname. Though he did not say how many orders he gets a month, another popular Taobao vendor shows sales of more than 40,000 orders a month.

“市场正在不断增长，因为目前似乎有很多人需要心理支持。”这位只提供了姓氏的黄先生说道。虽然他没有透露每月接到多少订单，但另一位热门的淘宝卖家显示每月销售超过40,000个订单。
Huang’s store offers four different levels of service according to the experience and qualifications of the counselor. For a 15-minute phone call, the cheapest counselor costs 20 yuan, while the most expensive is 90 yuan for a certified counselor.

黄先生的店提供四种不同级别的服务，根据咨询师的经验和资质。对于15分钟的电话咨询，最便宜的咨询师收费20元，而最贵的是经过认证的咨询师，收费90元。

Such services offer cheaper prices as well as greater flexibility than offline counseling, which can run up to 1,500 yuan per session. One of China’s leading online mental health service providers, One Psychology, has rolled out a simple “chat” service, priced at 19.9 yuan for 30 minutes.

这类服务不仅价格更便宜，而且比线下咨询更加灵活，线下咨询每次可能要花费高达1500元。中国领先的在线心理健康服务提供商之一，One Psychology，推出了一项简单的“聊天”服务，每30分钟收费19.9元。
While full-fledged service providers like One Psychology have some qualification requirements for their counselors, chat service providers on sites like Taobao have far lower barriers to entry for theirs. As most clients only want a “simple chat,” staff members only have to be over 18 years old, chatty, and have a nice voice, said Huang.

尽管像One Psychology这样的全面服务提供商对其心理咨询师有一些资格要求，但淘宝等网站上的聊天服务提供商对其咨询师的准入门槛要低得多。黄先生表示，由于大多数客户只是想要进行“简单的聊天”，员工只需要年满18岁、健谈并且声音悦耳即可。
Most of his staff are female university students with spare time who want to earn extra income
like Shi, who enjoys the flexibility of the work. A senior at university, she started offering online chat services part-time a year ago. She can choose when to take up new orders, and she can work for as many vendors as she wants.

他的大部分员工都是有空闲时间想要赚取额外收入的女大学生，就像石一样喜欢这份工作的灵活性。作为一名大四学生，她一年前开始兼职提供在线聊天服务。她可以自由选择接受新订单的时间，并且可以为多个供应商工作。
She usually spends up to two hours a day texting clients, sometimes during her classes. They are mostly men who are “just looking for someone to talk to.” However, some try to steer the conversations toward sexual topics, at which point their orders are immediately canceled.

她通常每天花费多达两个小时给客户发短信，有时候甚至在上课期间也不例外。这些客户大多是“只是想找个人聊天”的男性。然而，有些人试图将对话引向性话题，这时她会立即取消他们的订单。
Of Huang’s 40 staff members, only two have any sort of professional training. One of them, Li Qiuyu, was the one who urged Huang to start the business after seeing the potential of the online chat service market.

黄先生的40名员工中，只有两人接受过任何形式的专业培训。其中一位是李秋雨，她是在看到在线聊天服务市场的潜力后，敦促黄先生创办这家企业的人之一。
Li, 36, had worked for almost two decades in human resources, which included giving career advice and counseling. During the pandemic, her company experienced a rapid downturn, prompting her to reconsider her career.

36岁的李女士在人力资源领域工作了近20年，包括提供职业建议和咨询。在疫情期间，她所在的公司经历了快速的衰退，促使她重新考虑自己的职业生涯。
After trying out offering career counseling online and feeling a sense of accomplishment, she took an official counseling course and received a certificate from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

在尝试在线提供职业咨询并感到成就感之后，她参加了一门官方的咨询课程，并从人力资源和社会保障部获得了证书。
In her view, the chat services on sites like Taobao are related to psychotherapy as both require listening. Although everyone can enter the industry and offer their services, she believes the market will eliminate the unqualified over time.

在她看来，像淘宝这样的网站上的聊天服务与心理治疗有关，因为两者都需要倾听。虽然每个人都可以进入这个行业并提供他们的服务，但她相信市场会逐渐淘汰那些不合格的人。

However, some industry veterans disagree that such services are a form of psychological counseling. Zhou Xiaopeng, a psychologist certified by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security with 18 years of experience, believes that real counseling is about more than just listening and providing emotional support, and is rather about offering solutions and helping clients address their problems.

然而，一些行业资深人士不同意这些服务是心理咨询的形式。周小鹏是一位拥有18年经验、经过人力资源和社会保障部认证的心理学家，他认为真正的咨询不仅仅是倾听和提供情感支持，而是提供解决方案，帮助客户解决问题。
“Psychological counseling helps clients combat their negative sides, while these ‘online chat services’ support greed and laziness,” Zhou told Sixth Tone.

“心理咨询帮助客户克服他们的负面因素，而这些‘在线聊天服务’则支持贪婪和懒惰，”周告诉《第六声》。
Taobao requires vendors offering counseling services to have at least three certified professionals working for them. Lin Bin, a customer service supervisor at Taobao, told Sixth Tone that simple chat services on the platform cannot claim to provide professional psychological treatment.

淘宝要求提供咨询服务的卖家至少要有三名持证专业人员。淘宝的客服主管林斌告诉《六度新闻》说，在平台上提供简单的聊天服务不能声称提供专业心理治疗。
For those that do meet the requirement, Lin said there is yet to be a “unified standard” for the types of counseling that may be offered on the platform as official guidance is still lacking.

对于那些符合要求的人，林表示，目前还没有针对平台上可以提供的咨询类型的“统一标准”，因为官方指导仍然缺乏。
Taobao also blocks searches for “companion chats” on the platform as there may be “inappropriate” interpretations of the term among the general public, Lin explained. However, other search terms such as “tree hollow” and “chat” can direct customers to these chat services.

淘宝也会屏蔽平台上对“陪聊”一词的搜索，因为在普通大众中可能会有“不适当”的解释，林解释道。然而，其他搜索词如“树洞”和“聊天”可以引导用户到这些聊天服务。
According to the World Health Organization, around 54 million and 41 million people in China suffer from depression and anxiety, respectively. However, there is insufficient supply of mental health resources to meet demand as well as a lack of willingness to pay for mental health treatment. State media has reported
that the penetration rate in the Chinese mental health industry is only about 10%, citing the estimates of a leading Tsinghua University professor.

根据世界卫生组织的数据，中国约有5400万人患有抑郁症，4100万人患有焦虑症。然而，精神健康资源供应不足，无法满足需求，同时也存在对精神健康治疗不愿意支付费用的问题。据国家媒体报道，中国精神健康行业的渗透率仅约为10%，引用了清华大学一位知名教授的估计数据。
Since 2020, the National Health Commission has issued guidelines
focused on increasing mental healthcare provision, including the greater promotion of online counseling services by state-run institutions such as hospitals and schools.

自2020年以来，国家卫生健康委员会发布了一系列指导方针，重点是增加心理保健服务的提供，包括通过国有机构如医院和学校更广泛推广在线咨询服务。
Nonetheless, the nascent online counseling industry still lacks regulatory supervision, including the protection of consumer rights. Online counselor Alice Wang, who requested a pseudonym for privacy reasons, told Sixth Tone that her vendor sometimes matches clients with counselors lower than the rank they paid for.

然而，尽管网络咨询行业正在起步阶段，但仍缺乏监管监督，包括对消费者权益的保护。为了保护隐私，网络咨询师Alice Wang（化名）告诉《第六声》（Sixth Tone）说，她所在的平台有时会将客户匹配给低于他们支付等级的咨询师。
In 2020, domestic media outlet Guangming Online called
for the establishment of industry standards for online counseling service providers and urged official mental healthcare institutions to expand their online services in order to prevent unqualified individuals from entering the industry.

2020年，国内媒体广明在线呼吁建立在线咨询服务提供商的行业标准，并敦促官方心理保健机构扩大在线服务，以防止不合格人员进入该行业。

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关键词
mental health
as well as
online chat
young Chinese