Child Psychiatry in the Chinese Setting

Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 2014

Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, 2018

Data pertaining to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP) training systems are limited as extant research was mostly derived from a one-time data collection. This 5-year follow-up survey collects updated information on CAP training systems in the Far East, allowing for the tracking of system changes over the past 5 years. Data were obtained from 18 countries, or functionally self-governing areas, in the Far East, 17 of which were also included in the original study. An online questionnaire was completed by leading CAP professionals in each country. Questions were expanded in the present study to capture the contents of CAP training. When compared to data from the original study, there has been progress in CAP training systems in the last 5 years. Specifically, there was an increase in the number of countries having CAP training programs and national guidelines for the training. In addition, the number of CAP departments/divisions affiliated with academic institutions/universities inc...

The following is based on several encounters and interviews during my time observing a psychiatric facility at a large urban hospital affiliated with a university medical school in Changsha, Hunan Province, China. In Chinese mythology, Shennong, also called the Yan Emperor, is the god of farming and of Chinese medicine. At a time when most of the Chinese diet consisted of animal meat, the population began to expand in a manner that could not be sustained by a meat-based diet alone. According to Chinese mythology, Shennong invented farming and taught the Chinese people how to cultivate crops. In his experiments, he identified more than 70 poisonous plants in a day, and through this process, began to create the idea that herbs and plants could cure diseases. (1) With an originating myth for medicine based on agriculture, the largely rural and farming majority of Chinese families continue to seek remedies for illness in the form of herbal medications. The idea of taking a pill and having the family provide the ancillary care for what the pill cannot cure is not new to the Chinese approach to treatment, and follows in line with how most psychiatric care, if available, is provided in China. Case Example: Mr. Li Mr. Li is the 19 year old son of farming Miao minority parents from a rural village in western Hunan Province. He enjoyed farming alongside his parents, but, drawn by the dream of economic prosperity, left home for work in a factory about 1 year prior to admission. He became quiet and socially withdrawn from his peers at the factory, but his family attributed this to his new situation without family and was contented by the fact that he was performing well at the factory. Eventually, his sleep began worsening, and he felt unable to concentrate at work. He told his family that he had " thoughts I don't want to think " that were keeping him awake at night. He felt ashamed going to work because " the others always talk about me and say bad things to me. " Given his inability to work, he was brought home to his village, and was very happy to return to his parents who took him to see a local rural doctor " because I couldn't work and wasn't sleeping. " This doctor had about 3 years of training in both western and Chinese medicine after middle school, the Chinese equivalent of high school. None of his training included psychiatric diseases or their treatment. Some of his traditional Chinese medicine training included ideas about emotions being linked with certain organ systems, and so Mr. Li's family purchased some herbs from the doctor to treat the emotional problem that the rural doctor diagnosed. The doctor also sold them an expensive western medicine called venlafaxine, which is used for depression. His parents felt that certainly an expensive medication must be the best and most effective available. However, despite adherence to the recommendations, Mr. Li's parents' initial concerns about their son's inability to work at the factory grew into

Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, 1978

Reportedly, the People's Republic of China has made great progress in health care services, particularly at preventive, primary and community levels. Information on their psychiatric services is still scarce. A group of 12 health professionals visited the country for three weeks in July 1977. This paper provides a description and an analysis of the network of mental health services using a sample of one mental hospital, six general hospitals and a number of health units in cities, factories and communes. The basic principles of policy and administration are those of a collective socialism with strong central guidelines and considerable local administrative initiative. Admissions to the mental hospital in Shanghai reveal that 83% are young acute schizophrenic cases and very few are neurotic or non-psychotic. This distribution stands in great contrast with admissions to mental hospitals in the West, as is the case in Canada, where schizophrenics represent only 12% of all first adm...

Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 2004

The purpose of this study was to describe behavioral and emotional problems, social competence, and family functioning of hospitalized Chinese adolescents and to compare their psychosocial functioning with normative samples of Chinese adolescents and their families. A convenience sample of 103 hospitalized adolescent patients and their families participated. Families came from geographical areas in the Chinese Mainland (5 hospitals) and Hong Kong (2 hospitals). Parents completed a Chinese version of the Child Behavior Checklist for ages 4 to 18 years and the Family Assessment Device. Adolescents responded to a Chinese version of the Youth Self-Report. Youth in the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong appear to be quite similar in many domains of behavioral functioning. Hospitalized adolescents in Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland exhibited behavioral and emotional profiles that were qualitatively similar to the norms reported in community samples of Chinese and Chinese-American adolescents, albeit significantly lower than their healthy counterparts. This study examined, for the first time, the psychosocial functioning of hospitalized Chinese adolescents and their families. Our findings contribute to the cultural relevance of measuring adolescent and family responses to a known stressor and are useful for international comparisons by health care providers and researchers.

Open Journal of Psychiatry, 2012

The purpose of this study is to reach a better understanding of how minor psychological problems (MPP) are perceived in China by well-educated Chinese. An exploratory qualitative design is used. The results are based on interviews with professionals and students practicing Chinese medicine (TCM) and lay people from three urban sites. Minor psychological problems have traditionally not been labelled as disorders or illnesses but challenges in daily living or as "heart problems" and seemed to have less serious consequences than we are accustomed to think from a modern western outlook. "Problems of life" rather than sickness was the category that best summarized perceptions of such problems among the Chinese. It points to a salutogenetic perspective reflecting perception of mental health and MPP as processes of adaption and interpretation of meaning rather than medical conditions or sickness. Due to the influence from the West these problems are, however, more often comprehended as a health problems or even sickness, and not solely natural problems of life.

This article provides a historical overview of the development of Western psychotherapy in China based on existing scholarship and my own ethnography. I describe a meandering trajectory embedded in the shifting political, social, and economic circumstances: the tentative beginning in the Republican period, the transmutation and destruction in the Maoist period, the relatively slow recovery and progress in the earlier reform period, and the eruption of the psycho-boom in the new millennium. Emphasis is placed on the reform period that began in the late 1970s, but by incorporating the previous periods I intend to show that the long-term process is highly relevant to the current psycho-boom. I further reveal that the development of psychotherapy in China has involved a dual processboth the building of this new profession and the infiltration of related ideas into the broader society-and that this duality is particularly evident in the recent psycho-boom. Finally, I discuss the implications of the new Mental Health Law and the preliminary signs that psychotherapy as a profession is taking root in urban China.

The Lancet, 2012

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 2015

Singapore is a small young city state with a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural population. This article reviews the development of the country's child and adolescent psychiatry services through the years, in the background of other developments within the country's education, social and legal services. Research and other available data on the prevalence of psychiatric problems among children and adolescents in Singapore are summarized, although there has been no nationwide epidemiological study done. One of the most recent developments has been the establishment of a community mental health service, which works collaboratively with schools and community partners. Some challenges are also discussed especially in the area of child and adolescent psychiatry training. Possible future directions include providing mental heath care for preschool children as well as epidemiological studies to identify disease prevalence and mental health needs among children and adolescents in Singapore.

East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal , 2022

From the mid-19th century to the first few decades of the 20th century, the critique of traditional families in China gained momentum from various sources. Apart from its social, political, and feminist critiques, different forms of family were subjected to psychiatric and psychological analyses. Historians have underlined the historical contexts in which the family became the subject of medical and psychiatric attention. However, the ways in which families were conceptualized in Republican China as the cause of mental and emotional disorders have yet to be clarified systematically. By focusing on psychiatric and psychological discussions of the dysfunction of families and society and its impact on mental health, the current work looks into the ways in which Chinese psy scientists interpreted Western theories and Chinese social reality in connection with the contemporary debates about national reform and scientific modernity. The present study shows that, while firmly believing in scientific professionalism, these psy experts were keen followers of May Fourth radicals in problematizing traditional morality and social structure and proposing new methods of self-management.