Psychology in China

Psychology in China 

Although psychology has a firm place in academia in China it isn't accepted by the population or the societal system. When a young person tells their parents in China they wish to go and examine psychology the first thing they are asked is what kind of job will you receive and the truthful answer is none. China does not yet know the benefits of psychology to business, hospitals, mental health, individual interactions and a lot more. So many are refused permission to study and need to find a major that has an Iron Rice Bowl in the end - i.e. government work, teaching, business and similar topics which guarantee a job for life.

Intro:

Many Western companies have attempted to break into the Employee Assistance Program marketplace but with very little success except encouraging Western workers from USA or similar established EAP contracts. Chinese companies don't have any interest in the psychological welfare of employees as may be seen by the large amount of young suicides in Chinese firms from strain of work and alienation by the policies and system of work. Some Chinese EAP firms have had success managing US or EU asks for help with counselling their overseas workers - mainly for connection issues abroad as expats find some cultural resistance and depression due to being away from family and the usual support systems they'd find in their own nation.

They hide them away in back rooms, don't find help except psychiatric drugs to control them (much as is the usage in the US). This attitude enables the situation where even the young do not seek out support through a mental health crisis. Suicide is the primary cause of death, amongst young people, between 20 and 30 years old in China - mostly female - the only country on the planet that has more female suicides than male.

Most firms work a family management program in China - this usually means the Boss functions as Father into the employees and so subservience is the order of their day - modern management techniques have all but passed China by - they simply can't adapt to the idea of empowerment and responsibility towards younger employees. So once an employee has a mental health problem firing them is the easiest path - there's hardly any legal protection here in China - even though the laws themselves exist, the expense of enforcement is beyond any worker's pocket.

Hospitals in China are by and by primitive in their facilities and the quality of medical care. Most physicians here would never be allowed to practice at the West since they study by rote learning and buying their way throughout the system. Corruption in the schooling process is everywhere - if your father has cash - you can pass anything.

Psychology in hospitals hardly exists as the government do not recognize psychology doctors as real doctors, which is ironic, as medical physicians are an honoury name and the psychologists all have PhD's. If a psychologist is found working in a hospital that the inspectors fine the hospital and give it negative things substantially the same as the driving license - so many factors closes the hospital. So many have to work under a medical physician as an advisor or consultant rather than within their own right. This is roughly fifty years behind in modern thinking but even at the West psychologists are often treated as second class citizens by the medical profession, who in the primary really fear a non-medical specialist in their midst.

Counselling:

Counselling training in China is even worse. You can have a paid for course part-time over fourteen months, fake your supervised hours (supposed to be 500 - hopeless for a new counselor at a nine month period) and pass on a very easy government licensing evaluation. Then it is possible to go to business as a professional unsupervised counselor treating patients. In any Western state the training period is over years and is frequently rigorous in its own testing and oversight and although I have contentions over how we perform the training in the West - compared to China which allows a situation where people are being treated by counselors with hardly any actual expertise, training or psychological understanding. Most use the technique of Tea & Sympathy and don't have any knowledge of how empathy works in practice. Most advisers will also be judgmental here - they tell the customer what they should be doing according to social conventions and not what's in the best interest of the client. A little like Western psychiatry in peddling drugs as opposed to offering remedies.

The reader may detect this over-view a tiny negative in demonstration and is anything good happening in China for mental wellness. Well some areas like Shanghai where there is a more Western influence and life style are embracing psychology more - but most want to be treated by a Western psychologist rather than a Chinese one. They expect that the Westerner not to be judgmental and have more modern methods for treating them. However Shanghai isn't representative of China as a whole. The majority of the populace live and work in the countryside and small conventional industrialized towns. They still work and think as they need for 100 decades and despite the Cultural Revolution in China many still have traditional approaches to the mentally ill as black cases to be hidden and not talked about. The angry aunty is merely locked from the backroom and fed; no one discusses her or talks about her out the family. Difficult to believe in this season of 2011 at a contemporary world but this is the situation that contemporary psychology in China must conquer. Keep in mind the average political leader in China is in his 70's or older - they are the ones dictating policy often with little care or comprehension of the emotionally ill - another irony amongst the dementia at high places.

On the surface the government talks about mental health but just like Western governments and also spend the smallest amount of their annual budget on mental health support programmes. Another problem is the absence of senior veteran psychologist to lead the programs anyway. Most professors in psychology sections didn't even do a psychology diploma themselves and teach out of Western textbooks with Chinese translations with very little depth to understanding the content and so set rote exams based on memory of the text as opposed to questions which examine the application of the theories that the student studied. As in all instruction in China - you have well read students, know all the answers but cannot actually use this information in actual life.