For several decades, China has been in a unique state of upheaval, which influences both social processes in the population as a whole and the separate fates of individuals, and is correspondingly reflected in unconscious structures. On the basis of a recently described clinical picture in Chinese literature, the so-called “empty heart disease” , an attempt will be made to understand this against the background of the multiple transformation processes and their psychological effects, and to clarify the extent to which this is a specifically Chinese phenomenon.