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Psychoanalysis in the Middle Kingdom |
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The past three weeks of coverage of the Sichuan earthquake disaster have brought tons of attention to this humanitarian crisis and, to the great relief of the Communist government, have deflected attention from the less-than-glowing coverage of torch run for the “Genocide Olympics.”
The human interest story du jour coming out of Southern China has been the immense number of Chinese psychiatrists that descended on the province to provide counseling to the tens of thousands of traumatized quake victims whose friends and family have died or gone missing in the quake and its aftermath. Media outlets from the BBC to ABC picked up on this curious story.
100 years ago, the emergence of a psychoanalytic literati in the coffee houses of Vienna found its match in the 19th century’s rise of a “desperate housewives” class. This was an urban bourgeoisie that became known for its ennui-driven introspection and tendency to pose for Gustav Klimt paintings. This class also ushered in the modern era.
Is Beijing today’s Vienna?
Fast forward to today and look at China. China currently has 19,000 registered psychiatrists. That is half the number of American psychiatrists but the number is rising rapidly. Treating mental distress is an essential element of compressive disaster relief but the surplus of so many well-qualified mental health professionals in China is also a sign that the Chinese coastal bourgeoisie is rapidly developing, leaving China’s rural peasantry behind. And nowhere is this more obvious than in today’s Sichuan province, where Beijing and Shanghai’s psychoanalysts are confronting a social mismatch between this modern coastal elite and a pre-modern inland plebeian class.Â
Tyson Barker works on transatlantic issues at a think tank in Washington, DC. He received his BA from Columbia University in History and German Studies in 2004 and his MA from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, in 2007. Tyson is a former Fulbright Scholar and has received research fellowships to Taiwan and China. While Tyson knows that crooked obsession with reality TV will one day get him into trouble, he just can’t turn off an ANTM marathon. Â
