China Today series
Copyright © Jie Yang 2018
The right of Jie Yang to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2018 by Polity Press
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-0295-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-0296-7 (pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Yang, Jie, 1970- author.
Title: Mental health in China : psychologization and therapeutic governance / Jie Yang.
Description: Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity, 2017. | Series: China today | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017013935 (print) | LCCN 2017025905 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509502981(Mobi) | ISBN 9781509502998 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509502950 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509502967 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Mental health--China. | Mental illness--China. | Mental health policy--China. | BISAC: MEDICAL / Mental Health.
Classification: LCC RA790.7.C6 (ebook) | LCC RA790.7.C6 Y36 2017 (print) | DDC 362.20951--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013935
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| 1894–5 | First Sino-Japanese War |
| 1898 | First mental health hospital established in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, by American Medical Missionary John Kerr |
| 1911 | Fall of the Qing dynasty |
| 1912 | Republic of China established under Sun Yat-sen |
| 1917 | Institute of Psychology established in Beijing |
| 1927 | Split between Nationalists (KMT) and Communists (CCP); civil war begins |
| 1934–5 | CCP under Mao Zedong evades KMT in Long March |
| December 1937 | Nanjing Massacre |
| 1937–45 | Second Sino-Japanese War |
| 1945–9 | Civil war between KMT and CCP resumes |
| October 1949 | KMT retreats to Taiwan; Mao founds People's Republic of China (PRC) |
| 1950–3 | Korean War |
| 1953–7 | First Five-Year Plan; PRC adopts Soviet-style economic planning |
| 1954 | First constitution of the PRC and first meeting of the National People's Congress |
| 1956–7 | Hundred Flowers Movement, a brief period of open political debate |
| 1957 | Anti-Rightist Movement |
| 1958 | The first National Conference for Mental Illness Prevention in Nanjing |
| 1958–60 | The Great Leap Forward, an effort to transform China through rapid industrialization and collectivization |
| March 1959 | Tibetan Uprising in Lhasa; Dalai Lama flees to India |
| 1959–61 | Three Hard Years, widespread famine with tens of millions of deaths |
| 1960 | Sino-Soviet split |
| 1962 | Sino-Indian War |
| October 1964 | First PRC atomic bomb detonation |
| 1966–76 | Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution; Mao reasserts power |
| 1970 | The abolition of the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences |
| February 1972 | President Richard Nixon visits China; “Shanghai Communiqué” pledges to normalize US–China relations |
| September 1976 | Death of Mao Zedong |
| October 1976 | Ultra-Leftist Gang of Four arrested and sentenced |
| December 1978 | Deng Xiaoping assumes power; launches Four Modernizations and economic reforms |
| 1978 | One-child family planning policy introduced |
| 1979 | US and China establish formal diplomatic ties; Deng Xiaoping visits Washington |
| PRC invades Vietnam | |
| Mental Health Clinics opened at Beijing and Shanghai | |
| 1982 | Census reports PRC population at more than one billion |
| December 1984 | Margaret Thatcher co-signs Sino-British Joint Declaration agreeing to return Hong Kong to China in 1997 |
| 1985 | Chinese Association for Mental Health established in Beijing |
| 1989 | Tiananmen Square protests culminate in June 4 military crack-down |
| 1992 | Deng Xiaoping's Southern Inspection Tour re-energizes economic reforms |
| 1993 | The inclusion of cultivating “psychological quality” in educational objectives by the Central Party policy |
| 1993–2002 | Jiang Zemin is president of PRC, continues economic growth agenda |
| 1997 | First Sino-German Mental Health Training Program started at Shanghai Mental Health Center |
| November 2001 | WTO accepts China as member |
| 2001 | National Mental Health License introduced by Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security |
| 2002–3 | SARS outbreak concentrated in PRC and Hong Kong |
| 2002–12 | Hu Jintao, General-Secretary of CCP (and President of PRC from 2003) |
| 2006 | PRC supplants US as largest CO2 emitter |
| August 2008 | Summer Olympic Games in Beijing |
| 2008 | Psychological counselors aided victims from the Sichuan earthquake |
| 2010 | Shanghai World Exposition |
| 2012 | Xi Jinping appointed General-Secretary of the CCP (and President of PRC from 2013) |
| First Mental Health Law of PRC | |
| 2015 | National Mental Health Working Plan released by National Health and Family Planning Commission of PRC |
I would like to thank all my informants and friends in both Beijing and Shandong Province for their generosity with their time, expertise, connections, and, most of all, for their trust. They opened so many doors for me to venture into diverse and multiple realms of mental health practices in China that compelled me to constantly rethink my research questions and expand my ethnographic inquiry. While I cannot thank them one by one publicly, their voices and insights permeate pages of the book. I hope that they like the way I interpreted their perspectives.
I presented materials drawn from this project at various conferences and institutions. I thank the organizers of and participants at these events: the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association (2009–16); and the 2016 biannual meetings of the International Gender and Language Association, University of Victoria, University of Westminster, City University of Hong Kong, Free University Berlin, Columbia University, and Washington University at St. Louis. Special thanks go to Nick Bartlett, Anett Dippner, Derek Hird, Brian King, Daromir Rudnyckj, Julia Vorhoelter, and Gerda Wielander. I truly appreciate their valuable contributions to this book and treasure their friendship and support.
The book has benefited greatly from conversations with or written comments from Manduhai Buyandelger, Cherum Chu, Parin Dossa, Elsa Fan, Fang Yuanyuan, Zhipeng Gao, Lisa Hoffman, Hu Linying, Hu Xinying, Anru Lee, Ann-Marie Leshkowich, Mieke Matthyssen, Carl Ratner, Pam Stern, Louise Sundararajan, Priscilla Song, Allen Tran, Wang Linan, Zhang Hong, Li Zhang, and Zhang Liao. I appreciate helpful research assistance from Marion Lougheed, Su Jing, and George Qingzhi Zhao. Janet Keller and Erin Martineau offered meticulous editorial guidance, intellectual inspiration, and helpful comments on the manuscript. I especially thank Marguerite Pigeon for her constant encouragement, support, and very insightful and valuable contributions to this project since 2014 when I started to draft the book.
I also benefited greatly from conversations and support from my colleagues at Simon Fraser University. Janice Matsumura has been a great mentor, and her constant encouragement and intellectual guidance have been extremely valuable over the years since I came to SFU. Barb Mitchell offered both extremely helpful insights on how to write a compelling book and important references. Robert Menzies at a crucial moment of this project offered encouragement and very helpful reference guidance. I thank him for being such a superb colleague, supportive mentor, and insightful scholar.
The data this book draws on were collected during field research for a big project on therapeutic governance in China funded by a multi-year standard research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The final stage of writing was also supported by a Rapid Response Publication Grant from Simon Fraser University.
Writing this book would have been unimaginable without the trust of former editor at Polity Press Emma Longstaff, who first contacted me regarding this project in late 2014. I appreciate the way she contacted authors, personal, warm, and patient. Her insights into and guidance of the book proposal set the blueprint for the book. Jonathan Skerrett is a superb editor. I cannot thank him enough for all his help and labor. His clear and efficient guidance, thoughtful comments, and professionalism made it possible to bring this book to completion. Justin Dyer's meticulous and virtuosic editing is truly a gift. I thank Justin and Neil de Cort for the great attention and care they gave to the manuscript. I also want to thank Nick Manning and the other anonymous reviewer for insightful comments and helpful suggestions, which were instrumental to my final revisions.
I dedicate this book to my mother, who passed away before its publication. In order not to distract me from my writing, she asked family members not to reveal her illness to me so that I dedicated my time to finish the book proposal in Vancouver in early 2015 before heading back to China. She made sure that I got in touch with a key research informant whom she had met through her doctor a few days before she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. My memory of her love, warmth, wisdom, and spiritual strength will nurture me and sustain me for the rest of my life.