After a little more than half an hour, Dou, of the special police branch, left saying he felt much better mentally for having revealed his personal concerns to Liu Jianru, a senior psychologist.

About a dozen of Beijing police officers followed Dou to receive Liu's service Saturday afternoon, which was launched by the city's police authorities.

The opening of the service marked the start of a project to provide standardized psychological assistance to police staff in the capital city.

Dou told Xinhua that early in his professional career, he wanted to carry a gun with him. But though he now always works with guns he has grown strangely afraid of them.

"I needed experts to help ease my psychological pressure and I' m happy I have now," Dou said.

Such a project draws on the experiences of western countries that use modern psychological analytical methods to help alleviate pressure of the officers.

Before Beijing's project, police authorities in Shanghai and Shenzhen had trialed the introduction of psychologists to help staff with psychological problems.

Liu Guifang, commissar of the special police branch, said that special police are prone to feeling pressurized over guns, because they tackled high risk tasks such as anti-terrorism and cracking down on violence.

After being in a high-pressure state for some time, some special police may feel anxious and lose good self-control, according to Liu.

Those psychological problems have caused family splits, physical health problems and a drop in work efficiency.

"To ensure that all special police can perform missions with good mental health through doing considerate and scientific ideological work is a new guideline for police management, the commissar said.

Psychologist Liu said that in her view, policemen were under a lot of psychological pressure because they always worked in dangerous situations, and they lacked effective ways to ease such tension.

"Therefore, they need psychological service more than ordinary people," she said.

"I feel happy and honored to help those police. And the service guarantees that no record will be kept and the officers' privacy is secure," she noted.

According to local police authorities, such services will be offered regularly in the future. A series of other measures will also be taken to ensure psychological health of the police, including giving regular lectures and launching a special advisory hotline for them.

(People?s Daily April 28, 2002)