TCU’s Foot of the Mountain Forum Expands Audience’s Life Horizons

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Text/Photo: The College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Translation: J.B. Willis, Steve J. Lin

Foot of the Mountain Café is situated on TCU’s Jieren Campus. This semester, Foot of the Mountain Forum, which is organized by Foot of the Mountain Café, will hold a series of speeches on psychology. The first one was held on October 5, 2018, when Yong-Sheng Wen, a clinical psychologist, presented “Plant Companionship.”

“Suffering and Listening” was the theme of the previous academic year’s Foot of the Mountain Forum, and audiences reacted enthusiastically. They viewed suffering with open-mindedness and learned numerous ways to face it. Many faculty members, staff and students, along with community residents, participated in last year’s series, and longed for more this year. This year, Foot of the Mountain Forum invited four clinical psychologists, to share various aspects about clinical psychology from their clinical experiences. Psychology is more than about the brain and nervous system, and this series will enable us to gain knowledge about psychology through varied and inventive ways.

Yong-Sheng Wen is a TCU alumnus. After studying plants for a while, he found that plants are helpful to improve our health and moods. If we have plants around us, we feel happier and healthier, and psychologists can also help their patients by guiding them to have plants around.

Hsu-Ya Lu is a Jungian psychotherapist certified by the International Association for Analytical Psychology. She presented female-related issues by using seven popular Grimm’s fairy tales, which are relevant to a female’s seven vital aspects of life. If we give brand new meanings to what happened in the past, it will help us see clearly what is happening now, and assist us to resolve dilemmas lasting for a while. Now the princess has become a queen and lives happily, which signifies a possibility that we can get better through transformation.

Xue-Ling He is a different clinical psychologist, and her first workplace was in a hospital hospice unit. She is going to talk about death that no one can avoid. Accompanying terminally-ill patients is her job, so she goes with her patients to face their deaths with gracefulness and wholeness; moreover, she will lead us to see the possibility of facing our own ultimate deaths with dignity.

The fourth topic is what we are shy to talk about, and that is sex. Although we are hesitant to discuss it, it is part of us. The speaker, Jia-Hui Lu, is an expert in sex therapy, and it is hard to imagine that she chose to do it. She attends to the needs of her patients daily, and manages her practice with enthusiasm.

This year, these four clinical psychologists are going to share with us how they developed their innovative practices and served their patients with loving-kindness. As for us, we will acquire knowledge about psychology and expand our life’s horizons, by listening to their presentations. These speakers base their professionalism solidly on mainstream psychology, and carry out their practices with innovation, along with compassion, and as a result, they are successful practitioners in their fields.

These speeches will be given at Foot of the Mountain Café, which is located on TCU’s Jieren Campus. With the aim of assisting TCU’s students in their minds, Foot of the Mountain Café sponsors numerous activities to instill students with needed skills and knowledge, and helps them pave the way for what they want to do in their lifetimes. The opening hours for Foot of the Mountain Café are 9:30 a.m. ~ 12:30 p.m. on Mondays, 9:30 a.m. ~ 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays, and 10:30 a.m. ~ 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays. They heartily welcome everyone, including local residents, to appreciate the beauty of Nature, relax a bit, and enjoy the leisureliness.

The speech series sponsored by Foot of the Mountain Forum for Fall Semester, 2018 is as follows:

Venue: Foot of the Mountain Café, Jieren Campus, Tzu Chi University

  • “Plant Companionship” by Yong-Sheng Wen, on October 5, 2018, 7:00 p.m. ~ 9:00 p.m.
  • “Seven talks on fairy tales analysis” by Hsu-Ya Lu, on October 19, 2018, 7:00 p.m. ~ 9:00 p.m.
  • “Coming to the end of life” by Xue-Ling He, on November 2, 2018, 7:00 p.m. ~ 9:00 p.m.
  • “Psychotherapy on sex: Expand your imaginations toward what a psychologist can do” by Jia-Hui Lu, on November 9, 2018, 7:00 p.m. ~ 9:00 p.m.