The Social Context of Psychiatric Rehabilitation in China

Abstract

A Western psychiatrist visiting a ward, out-patient department, or sheltered workshop in China would find much that was familiar, not only in terms of clinical syndromes and medication usage but also in the paucity of resources, problems with administrative hierarchies, and lack of status accorded by medical colleagues to psychiatry. Chinese psychiatric patients able to converse with their Western counterparts would discover that they shared much of the experience in common: stigma, problems with employment, and difficulties in finding a marital partner. Patients' relatives from East and West, likewise, would be able to recite a litany of similar concerns and complaints: the need for guidance and advice in handling disturbed behaviour at home, the gossip of neighbours, and the fear of another relapse.