Oedipus in China: Can we Export Psychoanalysis? 中国人的俄狄浦斯情节:我们可以传播精神分析么?
Anne-Marie Schlösser*
*Goetheallee 8, D-37073 Goettingen,
Tel +49 551 56977 Fax +49 551 43483
aschloesser@t-online.de2
Abstract
The author describes experiences gathered during several years of teaching psychodynamic psychotherapy with psychologists and psychiatrists within a 2- year-training programme in Shanghai, China. Questions and problems of the reception of psychoanalysis – shame, sexuality, harmony, abstinence - as well as possibilites and limitations of exporting psychoanalysis are discussed. Possible future development of Psychoanalysis in China is outlined.3 作者 描述 体验, 训练 中国上海 心理学家 精神科医生 精神分析动力治疗,问题与解答 关于 害羞 性欲 和谐 缺席, 中国精神分析发展的概况
Key words
Teaching Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in China, Transcultural approach, Cultural Relativity, Abstinence, Shame, Sexuality, Harmony.
Everyone is on the way to China.每一个人都在中国的路途中
A night scene in an overfilled third class train carriage with wooden seats and dim lighting, somewhere in China. This is how the novel of Dai Sijie starts, “Mr. Muo’s travelling couch“. Mr. Muo keeps records of his dreams - his own, during his travels through China, and those of his fellow countrymen. He has just completed his training in analysis in France and now, after returning to China, sets out to apply his acquired insights to cope in a country that seems to him, at least in part, grotesquely altered. He is convinced that nobody, not even the “official representatives of law and order“ can escape the truth of psychoanalysis. It is his intention to bring this truth back to his homeland where for a long period of time psychoanalysis was prohibited. His undertaking evolves into something of a ludicrous adventure. And the question arises: is China ready for psychoanalysis? Do we have anything to offer and do Chinese people need it?
Everyone is on the way to China. This also includes a group of German psychoanalysts who, like businessmen, politicians and professional athletes, take the plane to Peking or Shanghai to follow-up their contacts. In a time in which psychoanalysis in the West is not just fighting for recognition but for its very existence, the offers from Europe of courses of continued education meet with an enthusiastic reception. Twice a year, four times in all, some 200 Chinese psychiatrists and psychologists travel to Shanghai, sometimes over thousands of kilometres through the country. Their aim is to take part in a course that costs them half a month’s salary and at the end of which they receive a certificate on basic training in psychodynamic psychotherapy. The chances of acquiring a good position, such as head of a hospital with this qualification are great and so is the growth in demand for these courses. Many people who are interested have to be turned away because of the lack of capacities.
Freud and psychoanalysis; it was the translation of an American article. In the wake of this publication, the adoption of psychoanalysis in China was not restricted to short articles. In the 1920s and 1930s there were many translations from Freud, of secondary literature as well as simplified and explanatory texts. In 1949 upon the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the interest in psychoanalysis disappeared. In a country in which correct political awareness is on a par with mental health, the “teaching of the dissection of the heart“ (a term formed by Zhang Shizhao) became obsolete.
The western world has discovered China for itself - and for the export of psychoanalysis. And yet there were already contacts some hundred years ago: in 1912 a report came out aboutIt was only 40 years later that China rediscovered psychoanalysis for itself. In the late 1980s a few German psychoanalysts visited China and the upshot was that the German-Chinese cooperation took shape that was to bring over western methods of psychotherapy. There are training courses in Peking and Shanghai where, thanks to the initiative of Xiao Zeping, Head of the Mental Health Centre, a continuous further education programme has now been fully established. Alf Gerlach coordinated the group of German analysts. I myself have only been involved for a few years, although it seems to me to have been longer. There is a great deal that renders me thoughtful. The more I travel in this country, the more I feel convinced that it is impossible to do justice to its complexity and shimmering identity.
A country in transition - a split society. The dividing line between the glitter of the huge cities of the East where the Olympic Games took place and the bitter poverty in the West is deepening. The gap between rich and poor is greater than in many countries of Africa. Spectacular successes in economic growth and combating hunger merit our awe and admiration. I look for the familiar features and see people in the throes of shopping frenzies, the new businessmen who travel, wear designer fashion and enjoy the spectacle of Shanghai at night from the Italian restaurant in the Jin Mao Tower.
Yet I also see the cyclists in pyjama look, in their wai di ren, the day labourer or migratory worker in the mega-cities who are transporting carloads of bricks on a board that is tied to the luggage rack. They see their wives and children, sometimes thousands of kilometres away, only a couple of times each year. These people now account for one third of the population of Shanghai. The Cultural Revolution weakened the old family structures and ties but now, even neighbourly contacts are severed due to people’s forced relocation away from the old city into new settlements. The old cultural values are laid bare to a rather brutal capitalism, but the governing party is communist. We are upset at the rigidity in which autocratic procedures are adhered to and by the violation of human rights that we read about in the press. During this period the news about the disastrous earthquake reached us and also about the tremendous sense of compassion and humanity among the Chinese. Many contradictions.
What is surprising to some: in this country psychoanalysis is not just tolerated. It has become an official issue. It merges into the parole of the “harmonious society“, the new magic word used by Chinese leaders. This concept recognises that a rapidly growing economy is not a panacea, but that it needs complementary measures to correct mistakes and avert destabilisation. In October 2006 the Communist Party of China published a resolution for the “furthering of the psychological (sic!) harmony of the population“ as an important political goal. On the one hand, this means a landslide, and on the other it comes as no surprise in view of 250,000 accomplished and 2 million attempted suicides each year. In other words, the door is open? Yes indeed. Yet the problems are rooted elsewhere. Towards the middle of the past century, Ernst Kris refused to treat Asian patients: “I am not familiar with the Ego of these people”. This was no less true for us, even if we did not travel to China to treat patients, but for furthering the education of Chinese psychotherapists. What were the difficulties we encountered? Let me now highlight some of what I experienced during my stays in Shanghai – to date I have been there four times – and comment on its significance for the project.
The strive for harmony 为和谐而奋斗
In Chinese cuisine, taste evolves from the merger of contradictions. A similar recipe is used if one wants to create an atmosphere of humanity and compassion and reciprocal commitment: the Ego is meant to absorb the You and vice-versa the Ego is to be embodied in the You. As Sun Longji describes in his book “Das ummauerte Ich“ [The immured Ego], the Chinese Ego is not familiar with clear borders and it is felt to be unseemly if emphasis is made of one’s own rights towards another person. That sort of behaviour is considered to be small-minded. The needs of the other are placed higher than those of oneself, a condition that can go as far as to almost domineer the western guest by satisfying the wishes that he is presumed to have, so that he could even feel robbed of his right to take a decision freely. With the call for harmony, an external conflict between one’s own needs and those of society is possibly averted. Intra-psychically, we see a conflict between impulses of autonomy and conformity, between the need for self-realisation and the enormous fear of social isolation.
During the last course session, I asked the participants to look back on how they had experienced the instruction in psychoanalysis and to say what they found was good and put forward a few suggestions as to what could be improved the next time. (You note I was diplomatic in wording this sentence). Without really expecting otherwise, I was greeted to many kind expressions of praise. Of course I was pleased to hear all this, but with the passing of time I felt uncomfortable, simply because there was no end to it. Again I asked for proposals for improvement and was met with dead silence. I tried to take a more confiding approach – after all, we had spent 8 days working 7 – 8 hours a day together: I could not imagine that nobody had experienced anything from which one could derive changes to the course or in the nature of our work. To be brief: I failed to elicit even one sentence from the course participants that could be seen as even partially critical.
I got the message; it was important for the participants to see me as an idealized object. The respect I was shown not just at the end of the course and about which any tutor in the western hemisphere can only dream, serves the purpose of harmony as the highest ethical value, and ultimately the furthering of one’s own self-worth. Were one to criticise me, the harmony would be destroyed. Even more, I would be ruined as object with which one could identify. According to the Confucian doctrine, identification with an idealised master, however, is a central mechanism, by which one magically acquires – or should one say by which one incorporates? – something new that one considers to be valuable. It is for this reason, therefore, that in China one is responsive to the wishes of the other. And this is most definitely the case with the German teacher, who has something of high ethical value to impart. This harmony with the wishes and conceptions of the other is different from the empathy, which does not override the differences to the other, even if there is a provisional identification.
At the final session last May, i.e. after 4 x 8 days when everyone had received their certificates and I had reiterated my obligatory question for criticism, I did actually receive a reaction: the case studies presented should embody more information; the opinions voiced by the course participants were not really beneficial; it would be better if I should speak more about my own views. (Well, at least the course had achieved something: a better ability to set critical distance).