Psychiatrist Jeong Hye-shin says just one question 'How are you feeling these days?’ can work as CPR for someone on edge

Many people struggle with relationships, with spouses, friends, coworkers, or children. They want to know how to talk and behave so they can form supportive, comforting relationships. Most have experienced losing someone close after revealing their emotions or inner thoughts. As a result, many choose to hide their true selves and conform to others’ expectations. Yet despite appearing fine on the outside, many suffer from deep loneliness and anxiety.

Dr. Jeong Hye-shin, a 63-year-old psychiatrist who has spent more than 30 years helping people heal, from victims of national tragedies to CEOs, politicians, and everyday citizens, emphasizes that “emotions are the core of human existence.”

We met Dr. Jeong in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, on June 12 to mark the release of “Reading You Are Right with Your Hands,” a handwritten version of her bestselling book “You Are Right,” which has sold over 500,000 copies. She explained, “When our existence, our feelings and emotions, are not seen or acknowledged, it leads to a deep sense of lack, and even fear of self-erasure.” She argued that elements like appearance, power, wealth, talent, education, values, preferences, and taste are all peripheral to a person’s being. What is truly essential to living fully is emotion. That is why she firmly believes that even a simple question like “How are you feeling these days?” can work as emotional CPR for someone on the brink. This, she said, is the foundation of empathic communication, and just refraining from unsolicited advice, evaluations, and judgments is enough to start that process. “What people need most in moments of desperation is acceptance of their existence, such as words like ‘There must have been a reason you acted that way,’ or ‘You are right.’”

“’You Are Right,’ which was published in 2018, was the result of a ‘healing’ project I carried out with the Seoul Metropolitan Government over eight years starting in 2013. It was a program in which wounded individuals were trained to help heal others who were also hurting, like a relay of care, and I met around 5,000 citizens through it. There was a specific reason I decided to publish the handwritten edition recently. A friend of mine who was imprisoned for a political incident under the previous administration told me that copying the book’s sentences by hand helped bring my friend emotional stability. I, too, found that this method helped cleanse my mind when I was struggling with anxiety after former president Yoon Suk-yeol’s martial law declaration on December 3 of last year.”

People often regard having negative emotions like hatred, jealousy, or anger and expressing them as signs of immaturity. Jeong called this belief “a form of large-scale psychological violence.” She emphasized that blaming or suppressing one’s emotions is fundamentally wrong. “If you feel something, there is a reason. You must first recognize and follow your feelings,” she said. When there is someone who can simply listen without giving advice or judgment, it helps release emotional pressure and brings clarity to one's own heart.

She described loneliness and isolation as “the vital spots of the world.”

“In today’s hyper-modern society, we are often detached from what is essential, which is our being. For example, it is common for a mother to focus not on her child’s existence itself, but on school grades relative to how much she has invested. Husbands often treat their wives in the same way. So everyone ends up feeling lonely. When I host book talks and ask simple questions like, ‘What kind of person are you?’ ‘Are you doing okay?’ ‘How’s your mind these days?,’ many people break down in tears. They may be cheerful and composed elsewhere, but when we make eye contact and have conversations that focus on their very being, their true emotions come to the surface.”

The issue, she pointed out, is not only that many people lack friends to confide in, but that they also do not know how to be a friend to someone else. Children raised as only kids by dual-income parents, shuttled from one private academy to another, often grow up without having had the chance to simply play with peers. The rise of socially withdrawn youth, single-person households, and a culture that pushes people to evaluate all relationships based on utility, what they give and take, only deepens this grim reality. “Everyone feels helpless and alone, and that deep, simmering frustration can explode in various forms,” she said, noting that senseless crimes and suicides are extreme manifestations of this.

“There needs to be at least one person who offers genuine empathy, but that person is not always close by. Let’s take young adults aging out of foster care and are preparing to stand on their own two feet. What they often wish for most is an adult they can talk to when life gets unbearably hard. Even those with parents do not always have that kind of presence, but for these young people, that kind of support does not exist at all. That is why I believe we need a system to provide such emotionally meaningful relationships for those who do not have anyone to turn to. That, to me, is what a true social safety net looks like.”

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.