Anxious China

The breathless pace of China’s economic reform has brought about deep ruptures in socioeconomic structures and people’s inner landscape. Faced with increasing market-driven competition and profound social changes, more and more middle-class urbanites are turning to Western-style psychological counseling to grapple with their mental distress. This book offers an in-depth ethnographic account of how an unfolding “inner revolution” is reconfiguring selfhood, psyche, family dynamics, sociality, and the mode of governing in post-socialist times. Li Zhang shows that anxiety—broadly construed in both medical and social terms—has become a powerful indicator for the general pulse of contemporary Chinese society. It is in this particular context that Zhang traces how a new psychotherapeutic culture takes root, thrives, and transforms itself across a wide range of personal, social, and political domains.

Ritmul suflat al reformei economice a Chinei a adus rupturi profunde in structurile socio-economice si peisajul interior al oamenilor. Confruntati cu cresterea concurentei bazate pe piata si schimbari sociale profunde, tot mai multi cetateni din clasa mijlocie apeleaza la consilierea psihologica in stil occidental pentru a se lupta cu suferinta lor mentala.