牛津大學給雪花一代學者提供心理諮詢 防止心靈創傷

Experienced academics at Oxford University are being offered counselling so they can avoid being traumatised by their research.

牛津大學擔心本校有經驗的學者在研究中心靈受傷，將爲其提供心理諮詢服務。

Critics say the move is the latest example of pandering to the emotionally delicate ‘snowflake generation’ who are over-sensitive to difficult situations.

“雪花一代”往往在困境前過度敏感，批評者認爲，這項舉措正是向情感脆弱的他們妥協。

But university chiefs say the aim is to avoid ‘vicarious trauma’ for postgraduates researching fields such as war, genocide, natural disaster, domestic violence, imprisonment and sexual abuse.

但牛津主管人員稱，這項舉措旨在防止研究戰爭、種族滅絕、自然災害、家庭暴力、關押監禁和性虐待等領域的研究生們遭受“替代性創傷（想象別人的痛苦而給自己帶來的創傷痛苦）”。

During two two-hour sessions last term, participants – many of whom would do teaching as part of their work – learned how to maintain their ‘personal and professional wellbeing’ despite facing ‘exceptional emotional demands’ from hearing about troublesome experiences.

上學期，牛津開設了兩節兩小時的課程，參與者——其中許多人工作的一部分就是授課——學習如何在聽到痛苦的經歷時直面“特殊的情感需求”，保持“個人與職業幸福感”。

The move follows the introduction of ‘trigger warnings’ alerting students when lectures might include challenging material, and ‘safe spaces’ where controversial opinions cannot be voiced – moves which have been derided as over-sensitive and politically correct.

該諮詢課程進行了課堂改革。當課程涉及到刺激性內容時，將會有“觸發警告”提醒學生。而且，在“安全區”中，不允許發表爭議性觀點。這些規定被嘲笑爲“過度敏感”和“政治正確”。

Of the new counselling sessions, Professor Alan Smithers, an education expert from Buckingham University, said: ‘You would have thought that if people were likely to suffer from secondary trauma, they wouldn’t be in that line of work.

對於這項新的諮詢課程，白金漢大學的教育學專家艾倫.史密瑟斯教授說：“你可能會覺得如果人們容易遭受二次創傷，他們從一開始就不會在這一行工作。”

'I cannot see why Oxford should use the time to put this on, but perhaps there is so much health-and-safety legislation around these days that the university might feel it has to protect itself from being sued.’

“我不知道爲什麼牛津要花時間開設這個項目，可能是如今英國有太多健康與安全法規，這項舉措可以使牛津避免被指控。”

And sociology professor Frank Furedi, from Kent University, said: ‘Postgraduates are being treated as emotionally fragile patients who require therapeutic intervention to function.’

肯特大學的社會學教授弗蘭克.弗萊迪說：“研究生被視爲是情感脆弱的病人，需要治療性干預才能正常工作。”

Earlier this year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Oxford law students destined to be barristers and judges were told they could skip lectures covering violent cases if they feared the content would be too ‘distressing’.

今年年初，《星期日郵報》曾報道稱，畢業後將成爲律師或法官的牛津大學法學系學生被告知，如果他們害怕課程中暴力案件的內容太殘忍，他們可以跳過這些課程不上。

Archaeology students at University College London were also given permission to walk out of classes if they found them disturbing, and a lecturer at another London university ‘flagged’ her lectures on the Roman poet Ovid because his work depicts rape.

同樣，倫敦大學學院考古學的學生若認爲課程令他們不適，有權走出課堂。另一所倫敦的大學教授刪去了有關羅馬詩人奧維德的課程，因爲他的作品中描繪了強姦的景象。

Oxford University said that the new trauma workshops were open to anyone who might need them, but were primarily for graduate students, usually in social sciences, ‘doing research involving fieldwork in dangerous and emotionally distressing environments’.

牛津大學聲稱，該新型創傷諮詢對任何有需要的人開放，但會優先考慮研究生。這些研究生通常研究社會科學，“研究領域涉及那些危險殘忍的環境”。

A spokesman said: ‘Our vicarious trauma workshops were designed for researchers whose work involved traumatic situations such as conflict zones, and whose own safety may have been in jeopardy.

發言人稱：“我們的替代式創傷諮詢是爲那些研究領域涉及戰爭衝突區等地的痛苦場景，可能危及自身心理健康的研究人員設計準備的。”

'The health and wellbeing of staff and students working in these areas is a priority for the university.

“學校應優先保障研究這些領域的老師和學生的健康和幸福。”

'It is important that researchers are also aware of the effects that their research can have on them and their personal and family life.’

“重要的是，研究人員也應該意識到他們的研究會對自身以及個人及家庭生活帶來的影響。”

'Therapy culture’ is most prevalent in American universities, where students have demanded warnings before hearing about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, which both feature suicidal themes.

“治療文化”在美國的大學中最爲流行。美國大學生曾要求，如果他們要聽弗朗西斯.斯科特.菲茨傑拉德的《了不起的蓋茨比》或是弗吉尼亞.伍爾夫的《黛洛維夫人》等包含自殺主題的課程，他們必須事先得到警告。