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Chapter 320 - 318: Freedom, Choices, and Responsibility

Chapter 320: Chapter 318: Freedom, Choices, and Responsibility

At this moment.

Without Micro-expression Analysis, it was still evident from Teacher Xiao Zhao’s expression at the moment that she had been impacted.

Then she fell into a deep silence to digest this impact.

Nan Zhubin observed Teacher Xiao Zhao’s reaction and ensured that during her silence, she was continuously thinking, and thinking progressively.

He did not expect Teacher Xiao Zhao to figure it all out at once, thinking "letting students sleep in class is indeed an effective intervention method."

However, as long as her thoughts start to shift in this direction, and she no longer sees "the quality of psychological consultation" as the only standard to measure whether her work is meaningful,

that would be the greatest success of this supervisory consultation.

Meanwhile, Nan Zhubin also began to recall and evaluate the progress of this supervisory consultation.

In terms of the progress between Nan Zhubin and Teacher Xiao Zhao at the moment, the content of the consultation has already equated to what would typically only occur in the second, third, or even fourth session with a visitor.

And yet, this was their first consultation.

The development could be said to be rather rapid.

It is also due to the high receptivity of professionals that Nan Zhubin could conduct the consultation in such a near "knowledge deluge" manner.

But no matter how fast it was progressing, time had already almost passed by.

Nan Zhubin glanced at the wall clock, finding that the minute hand had nearly made a full circle unwittingly.

He then looked at Teacher Xiao Zhao before him, who now wore an expression that said, "I am gradually understanding everything"; although there was still some hesitation, there was more determination in her eyes than at the beginning.

Nan Zhubin softly said, "Our time for this session is almost up, but... concerning your issue, there’s still a small problem that hasn’t been explored."

"I don’t know when our next... ’dialogue’ will occur, so I can’t postpone it like with an ordinary visitor, at the very least I need to come up with a solution before the end of this dialogue."

As mentioned before, right now, they were not truly a consultant and a visitor.

Although it could be far-fetchedly termed as Peer Supervision or even Supervision, yet—there were interfering factors at play.

In fact, Nan Zhubin himself did not want to initiate another consultation-like conversation in this manner. Later on, as he worked more with Teacher Xiao Zhao, even the quality of the Supervision would be impacted by their working relationship.

Fortunately, Teacher Xiao Zhao in front of him was a professional herself, fully understood Nan Zhubin’s approach, and was entirely able to withstand his current method.

Nan Zhubin said, "When I recommended the Existentialism school to you earlier, I actually wanted to recommend you to learn it yourself. The Existentialism school, rooted in philosophy, is inherently a method suitable for introspection."

"Now, regarding your last question, I will tell you the principle of a technique from the Existentialism school, and then you can try to intervene on yourself."

"If you have any confusion along the way, feel free to come and chat with me anytime—really chat, not like our current... situation." Nan Zhubin said, gesturing around the surrounding environment.

Teacher Xiao Zhao nodded understandingly.

...

In fact, by the time they spoke these few words, they had already stepped out of the consultation state.

The process of conversation became more relaxed and more at ease.

It really became like chatting.

"Mr. Nan, what technique are you going to teach me?" Teacher Xiao Zhao asked curiously.

It was originally intended to be applied in the third phase of consultation—the Freedom and Responsibility Analysis.

"In your previous description of the problem, besides ’feeling that your work is meaningless,’ you also had negative emotions because ’the leadership assigns trivial tasks that prevent you from performing your primary work,’ right?"

Nan Zhubin provided another summary of the previous topics.

Teacher Xiao Zhao nodded.

"Regarding ’unable to perform primary work,’ firstly, we can use the previous Meaning Reconstruction to redefine what exactly your ’primary work’ is; this can alleviate a significant part of your anxiety," Nan Zhubin said, "You can see this as an assignment. I believe you now have new thoughts as well."

Teacher Xiao Zhao nodded attentively.

"And using Freedom and Responsibility Analysis to revisit your recent statement, we can find that in your statement—"

Nan Zhubin held up a finger: "You were completely ’passive,’ and you subconsciously ignored your ’freedom.’"

"You were ’assigned’ trivial tasks by the leadership, hence losing the ’freedom’ to do your primary work."

Hearing this, Teacher Xiao Zhao pursed her lips.

"But—"

"The basic idea of the Existentialism school suggests that under any circumstance, a person has at least a minimal degree of freedom; people always have the right to choose and simultaneously must accept the consequences of their choices."

"Even ’not choosing’ is, in fact, a kind of ’choice,’" Nan Zhubin said with deep significance.

This statement carried a bit of a reproachful tone, as if telling Teacher Xiao Zhao, "The suffering you endure is self-inflicted."

However, its deeper meaning was to convey to the other party—that you actually still have the power to resist; it’s just that you’ve ignored it.

In doing so, to awaken the latent psychological energy of Teacher Xiao Zhao.

...

Sure enough, after hesitating for several breaths.

Teacher Xiao Zhao slowly spoke:

"If other friends or family members told me this, I’d definitely argue with them... ’what do you know, that’s how structured teachers operate around here, I don’t have the authority to reject the leadership’..."

"But facing you, Mr. Nan..." Teacher Xiao Zhao let out a long sigh, "Indeed, I simply haven’t resolved myself to refuse, and accept the results of refusing."

Nan Zhubin nodded: "This is the first point, you have the ’freedom to choose.’"

He raised a second finger: "Secondly, when you are truly faced with situations where you can’t choose, or the consequences of other choices are unbearable — although you lose the ’freedom to choose,’ you do have the ’freedom to change your attitude.’"

Teacher Xiao Zhao blinked.

"This..." her voice was dazed, "sounds like some teachers asking students who dislike math to start liking it, is that what you mean..."

Nan Zhubin waved his hand: "That’s seemingly giving you a choice, but in reality providing you with only one option, which is a swapped concept — in some sense, it’s like a type of toxic positive spin — unless that teacher can practically present ways to make students love math, otherwise just shouting empty slogans or imposing ’you can learn to love math,’ is merely rogue talk."