"Well, he's upset he can't go to the class?"

“I just - if I were in that position I’d be really scared, and I assume I’m way less traumatized than him! Has anyone been, like, checking in with him and how he’s feeling about it?”

"...why would we do that? Is it that stressful to have a new possible way that you might die?"

“….Right, I guess you’ve got some - different baseline assumptions. It still might be more upsetting to have people after him because they think he’s evil, than if it’s just mals? Especially if there’s some risk it’d cause a war. But yeah, I don’t know him well, I guess it might be way less of a big deal to him.”

"He mostly seems restless? --I have heard from the Anglos that you are doing the group therapy."

"Yeah! We had the first session on Wednesday, it went - okay, I think? Didn't go all that deep into anything, yet, but I think people needed a while to just get used to the idea and meet each other and stuff. I'm...hoping it'll end up being helpful?" 

"I want to do the therapy for my brother and Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. Can I set up a group?"

"Oh wow, yeah, I think that's a great idea! ...We can probably get more, like, into serious vulnerable stuff if it's all kids from Shanghai, too, I think a bunch of why Julia's group stayed kind of shallow and surface-level is that the indies are all trying to impress New York and don't want to look bad? ...Also I can totally get chocolates and tea and stuff from the void if it's for group therapy. Apparently. Or - whatever candy is popular as comfort food in China, I guess it's probably different?" 

"I think it's good for Wen Ning to talk to the people who didn't grow up with him... I might talk to Hanoi, Van is having trouble since his boyfriend died in that dustup last year, and Chang'an has their pet mundie. Wei Wuxian is already getting along with her."

"I don't think I know anyone from Chang'an or Hanoi yet, but - yeah, that makes sense. Seems worth trying. Uh, do you have a place to run it, or should we plan on doing it here?" 

"There's not many people-- we could do it in Wen Ning's room?"

"Sure, yeah, we can do that. Were you thinking, like, in the evenings, or on a weekend...?" 

"Maybe a weekend... how do you do the group therapy?"

"Uh, honestly, I'm...not really qualified to do this? In the mundane world, being a therapist is a totally different specialty from being a nurse, with different training. I've been reading a lot and I have some vague idea now? For Julia's one I mostly let her lead it, since she knows the kids and was partly doing, like, a relationship-building thing with them? ....I think basically the idea is that you have prompts for the participants to talk about their experiences and how they feel about it, and relate to each other about it. And you can sometimes do roleplay-y type exercises - like, having people practice a thing they want to be able to say next time another kid is bullying them, or whatever, but having someone else pretend to be the bully?" It sounds excruciating to her. 

"Can you ask the void for a book? It's the medicine, right?"

"Yeah, it definitely is! I might as well try and see what I get - although, uh, half the time the stuff I've gotten when I was asking about therapy was, like, painfully unreadable? But it seems worth a try, and maybe it'll work better now that I have a specific plan for using it?" 

She will go and attempt to ask the void nicely for group therapy guides or worksheets or other material! 

The void produces a copy of 103 Group Therapy Ideas & TIPS!

"Ooh! That looks like it might be pretty well targeted for this, actually? - Here, do you want to read it, you can have it." 

Wen Qing puts down the Avicenna and starts to read the book.

A few minutes later, she says, "are the puzzles therapeutic?" and turns the book so Marian can see:

"I– what? That's so weird! ...I guess, uh, maybe it's an icebreaker sort of activity, just to - give people something to talk about while they get used to each other, instead of trying to dive right into talking about feelings when everyone feels all tense and awkward? I don't know. The thing Julia did for that was handing around weird themed meditation chocolates that I got from the void, some girl did Tarot card readings for people to pick which chocolate. It...didn't really have much of a point in itself but I think it was helpful just, like, as a way for people to get to know each other?" 

"I guess? I don't think this one will work. No one speaks English that well."

"Okay, yeah, we shouldn't use it then. Are there any, like, fun silly puzzle games or something you can play in Mandarin? ...I won't be able to understand it but I think if it's just to be an icebreaker that's fine. And doing an activity that's fun sounds way more therapeutic than - well, I don't know if it's just me, but if they asked me that question in group therapy I think it'd kind of stress me out!" 

"It is supposed to teach the people to think flexibly to solve the problems?"

"I....guess it makes sense that that's an important skill to practice? Maybe we can come up with something else that'd still work in Mandarin." 

"I don't think this is the kind of thinking inflexibly that Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian have trouble with?" Read read read. "The lessons about helping people remember each other's names are in the next chapter. Wouldn't that come before the flexible thinking?"