The 53-year-old psychiatrist talks with people on the phone and helps them overcome stress, emotional and relationship problems.

Since its premiere in January 1999, the talk show, which is broadcast at 9-10 pm every Saturday has become one of the most popular on radio.

The major goal of the programme, Xu stressed, is to promote public awareness of mental health issues.

"What I try to do is not just help those I'm talking to. More importantly, I want to deliver helpful information to those who are listening to my programme," said Xu at her small apartment in western Beijing where she lives with her mother.

"The sharp increase in mental health problems is a natural result of the market economy," Xu argued. "When Britain went through the Industrial Revolution, people felt anxious too, but it is much worse in China, which is developing so fast."

In China, illness used to refer only to physical ailments and Chinese people usually treat mental illness as a taboo. They may share their mental health problems with close friends or family members instead of seeking advice from professionals, Xu said.

"The psychiatrist is the mirror of the soul, helping people to re-discover themselves," Xu added.

"If mental health problems are not diagnosed in time, they will become wounds in the heart which gradually fester and get worse and worse, until they finally ruin your life," explained Xu.

"But if detected at an early stage and treated properly, the wounds will be healed. Even though there might be scars, that won't affect your life much."

Turning point

Xu has a strong background in medicine, but her psychiatric career started in an unexpected way.

After graduating from Henan Medical College in Central China's Henan Province, Xu worked as a physician in Beijing No 2 Hospital from 1978 to 1981.

In 1981, she went to the United States and studied at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, where she later gained her master's degree in neurophysiology and PhD in pharmacology.

In 1991, she was admitted by the University of Pennsylvania for a Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Xu's trip to Beijing in 1993 changed her path in life for good.

"I was impressed by the tangible changes taking place in the country, as well as the psychological conditions of my friends," recalled Xu.

Xu found that most of them were more or less suffering from anxiety and depression.

"Nuclear families had become popular in the country and people had become more individual. And there was a lack of psychology professionals. So people had little access to get help for their mental health problems," Xu said.

The idea - "I should do something about this" - stayed with her even after she returned to the United States.

Upon her graduation, Xu was confronted with two choices - find a job at a pharmacy company or turn to psychotherapy and make a new start.

"I had struggled for a long time," Xu recalled. Finally she turned down all the job offers and started her new career.

Since 1994, she has spent four years studying psychotherapy - first Gestalt intensive training at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, then cognitive-behavioural therapy and psychoanalytical therapy at the University of Pennsylvania.

When Xu returned to Beijing in 1998, she found her first job - teaching clinical psychology at the Peking University.

She hoped to cultivate some trainee psychotherapists at the university, but to no avail.

New hope

Xu's hopes revived when she was invited to host a talk show by Beijing Education Radio.

"I believe radio is a good medium to help me deliver my knowledge to the public," said Xu.

In January 1999, Xu began to host "Dr Xu's Psych-hotline" together with Jiang Yuanwei, then 35, who has hosted health programmes at the radio station since 1994.

Compared with the face-to-face practice of psychotherapy, hosting the talk show is a different experience, Xu said.

"In face-to-face practice, what I'm conscious of is the person sitting in front of me. However, while doing the talk show, I must listen to the one who's talking on line and be conscious of the thousands of listeners sitting beside the radio as well," Xu explained.

Many callers are not the talking type and they don't like to talk about precisely what they think or how they feel, which has proven to be a great obstacle for Xu.

"The key to opening up these 'interrupted' minds is love," said Xu. "My initial responsibility is to make the caller feel they are cared for and loved."

Last March, Xu received a call from a young woman, a secretary at a joint venture, who had suffered great stress at work for years. What bothered her most was that no matter how much she had worked on improving her spoken English, she still felt insecure and awkward when talking with her foreign colleagues.

Xu's warm and encouraging words made the introverted caller more relaxed in talking about herself. Xu soon found out the woman was once fired by a company just because she had a foreign boyfriend - an event that hurt her so much that she lost her confidence at work.

Xu helped the woman realize that it was not her limited English but her memories of the event that made her nervous whenever speaking to a foreigner.

"You must realize it (losing the job) was not your fault," Xu told the caller, and then gave her some advice. "Try to keep reminding yourself that every day, and step-by-step, all the bad memories and feelings will slip away and the good feelings will come back."

Xu's talk show has won the hearts of listeners and she has received calls from people aged from 6 to 80.

"There is no empty talk in the show. Xu's analysis is to-the-point and her advice is helpful for general listeners," Zhou Baolin, a Beijing retiree who is an avid fan of the talk show, once wrote to the radio station.

"She is the most unique and excellent psychiatrist I've ever met, quick-witted, knowledgeable and understanding," said Jiang, who has worked with many mental health professionals before. "She can figure out what is the caller's problem and how to solve it within one or two minutes."

Xu's enthusiasm and devotion to psychotherapy has greatly influenced Jiang, who is now studying for a master's degree in psychology at Peking Union Medical School.

Xu owed her success in psychotherapy to professional training and her personal experience.

"Even my two failed marriages have had a positive influence on my career," Xu said, speaking frankly about her rocky relationships.

She married her first husband in 1979 just because "he could play violin," which was a great attraction for Xu who is an ardent music-lover. But soon she realized she had made a great mistake. The marriage lasted only 10 days.

"I had no idea what marriage was about at that time," recalled Xu.

She got married again in 1980. After she divorced her second husband in 1992, she raised her son by herself in the United States.

"Both my son and I have become much stronger and more independent after years of hardship," said Xu. Her son now is a graduate student in the United States and lives by himself at the age of 17.

Health education

In addition to the talk show, which will become a daily programme from 8:30-9:30 pm next month, Xu has devoted much of her time to running "Heart to Heart," a psychological health education centre established in Beijing two years ago.

The centre aims to provide training courses on mental health via the website www.ht2ht.com.

All of the courses are designed by Xu. Her first trial was an on-line training programme for teachers, launched last year in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province. About 60 teachers from high school, primary school and kindergartens in the city's Shangcheng District took part in the three-month programme which included self-taught courses in psychology, on-line discussion and self-evaluation.

According to a survey by the Mental Health Education Centre in the Shangcheng District of Hangzhou, most of the participants were very satisfied with the programme.

Some teachers said they benefited a lot from the programme - not only in their teaching but also in their own lives. Some said it was like a "psychological massage," helping to ease their stress and pressure.

Xu's next step was to promote the training programme among more teachers across the country.

"Of course, we won't solve all the problems in one shot. But let's get it done one-by-one," said Xu.

(China Daily January 21, 2003)