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China has, since the early 1980s, adapted to her outer reality of rapid urbanisation, industrialisation, and importation of Western models of thought. With stability and prosperity assured, she is now poised to reflect on her own inner reality and cultural continuity.
Much of China's cultural and ideological heritage was shaped by the Wen Ren (文人), sometimes translated as the scholar-gentlemen, or literati. A Wen Ren's quintessential legacy still widely practiced today is the painting genre known as Xie Yi (pronounced Sieh Yi, 写意); literally meaning writing mind. Xie Yi historically surged in the aftermath of social turmoil and provided shared cultural healing. This was achieved by creating paintings from the principles of communion with Nature and companion, non-interference, and the play of ink. Xie Yi heals by bringing the artist and viewer to a state of being at one with nature, and in the process, they both transcend worldly suffering, attaining the authentic and elemental within themselves.
Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, while internally varied, also commonly begin with trauma and fragmentation. In parallel to Xie Yi, patient and therapist jointly create metaphors and embark on a widening integration of the patient's inner scene. Through this process, the patient ultimately also transforms and arrives at a coherent self-structure and discovery of authentic self.
Resonance can thus be found between Xie Yi's imagery and the practice of psychotherapy, despite one being a visual culture spanning a millennium, and the other a dialogue in the therapy room. To understand this resonance, the author proposes that a scene-dialogue exists between one's inner and outer realities. In a Xie Yi painting, this is captured in yijing (意境), or mind-scenes, characterised by elements of leaving space, hidden metaphors, and rhythm. The author then identifies correlates to these elements in psychotherapeutic literature, in particular, the writings of William James, Donald Winnicott, Russell Meares, and Howard Gruber. Finally, the author illustrates by case examples, the synergy between Xie Yi and psychotherapy in clinical application.
It is hoped that the article will stimulate further identification of what lies in common in the human psyche across cultural differences. The benefit is perhaps not only in enhancing the development of therapeutic models in China, but also globally as we face the challenges of the twenty-first century together.