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As we know, the counselling profession in the modern sense originated in the West. But in the last two decades, counselling has indeed gained unprecedented popularity in China, both as a way for individuals to improve and resolve their physical and mental illnesses and for the national government to promote social governance reform. Today, the observation of “psychology” has become one of the most important dimensions of contemporary China. But why has counselling become the object of contemporary Chinese attention? Can counselling, rooted in Western thought, be integrated into Chinese life practices? How has counselling become an alternative path to governance in China? These are a series of questions that have yet to enter the realm of mainstream Chinese psychology and anthropology scholars. Li Zhang's
Contact: Guo Dong, email: guod@sumhs.edu.cn
Anxious China draws on her own experience and anthropological ethnography to analyse the relationship between the dramatic changes in social economic structure of China, anxiety, and the rise of the counselling profession and to delineate the path forward in the process of “localisation” of counselling. Impressively, the author attempts to go beyond the dichotomous framework of thinking between the inner and the outer world, between the spiritual realm and the realm of social reality, and between emotions and social governance to reveal the deep cultural meaning behind the collective emotions of Chinese people in this book.
In the seven chapters of Anxious China, the author begins by telling of her psychological counselling experience and gradually develops three points of view in her description and exposition. One is that China's rapid socio-economic changes have brought great wealth to contemporary Chinese people whilst simultaneously bringing about profound emotional tearing. Western counselling enters the Eastern world precisely at a time in history when the social structure, social relationships, family structure,