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Shanghainese
ask: 'So who's your therapist?'
Dressed in a light blue sweater and baggy
jeans, Mr Ling casually flips through a newspaper on a sofa at the Shanghai
Psychotherapy and Counselling clinic before finally leaning forward and asking:
'So, who's your therapist?'
He explains that he is himself seeking out
counselling because for the past several weeks, life has felt 'dull and
insipid'.
'It's nothing serious, I just feel I need to
a little help so that I can reach my full potential,' says the 36-year-old.
'I'm still far from the from feeling truly
excited about my work and for a fashion designer like me, that's fatal,' he
says, unashamed but declining to reveal his full name.
Shanghainese may be far from rivaling
angst-ridden New Yorkers, but residents of China's largest and wealthiest
metropolis are hitting he psychiatrist's couch with increasing frequency in
hopes of working out personal problems and improving the quality of their lives.
'In an international city like Shanghai,
there is more competition and the pace of life is very fast,' says Ms Liu Yilan,
vice-director of the Shanghai Psychotherapy and Counselling clinic.
'It's very normal that you may have some
mental health problems.'
When the clinic began counselling in 1985,
there were 30 patients a day, she notes. Now, more than 300 patients come to the
clinic per day.
While such a figures may pale in comparison
to institutions in the West, she attributes the 1,000-per-cent leap to better
awareness, education and less shame among Chinese.
'A great portion of young people are
white-collar types with very good salaries and high levels of education,' she
says.
'They are aware of the importance of mental
health, and they want to lead active lives and careers and believe psychotherapy
can help. They want to work in perfect mental condition.'
Mr Ling himself admits that he does not have
to work particularly hard -- only about two hours a day -- but there are still
plenty of pressures he must bear.
'I don't know how to cheer up myself and the
pressure makes me depressed.'
He may not come across as any less disturbed
than your average urbanite, but he exemplifies the radical transformation in
attitudes to health issues in modern China, where only a decade ago, people
associated with mental problems would have been branded, well, crazy.
Only two decades ago, few doctors in China
had even heard of psychotherapy amid already widespread criticism of Western
psychological theories and psychiatric techniques.
With the help of Western doctors, Chinese
psychotherapy began to emerge in the late 70s following the death of leader Mao
Zedong, who had deemed psychiatry as a useless and decadent science.
But despite the improvements, psychiatry
still lags far behind developed countries, says said Mr Yao Xingwei,
vice-director of Shanghai Mental Health Bureau.
The city spent about 600 million yuan (US$72
million) on treatment this year, a fraction of the 95 billion yuan it expects to
collect in tax revenue alone.
Not only is it not enough but some mentally
ill patients can't get proper treatment due to 'unawareness and ignorance from
both patients and doctors', Mr Yao says.
According to official estimates, about 1.6
per cent of China's 1.3 billion citizens suffer from severe mental illness,
which compares to about a 2.2-per-cent rate in the rest of the world.
In Shanghai, while the figures of those who
are suffering from varying degrees of mental illness stand at around five per
cent of its 13 million people, the real figures are much higher, he notes.
'Actually, there are far more mentally ill
patients in Shanghai than just five per cent.
'And many people are not included because
they feel ashamed to go to see a psychiatrist due to prejudices that still exist
among Chinese about mentally ill patients, both in urban and rural areas.'
As the old Chinese goes: 'Family shame should
be kept inside the house.'
But Mr Ling says there's no longer anything
to be ashamed of.
'I come here just because I know I need to
come. I hope the consultant can help to put me back into my normal orbit.' --
AFP
Singapore Straits Times
23 Oct 2003
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