In 1929, Freud wrote to Zhang Shizhao, ex-Minister of Education of China: “I am pleased by your intention, in whatever manner you care to carry it out … [to] introduce psychoanalysis to your native country China.” This past August, following Freud's suggestion, I delivered four lectures on psychoanalysis in China.
During the 1920s and ‘30s the Chinese — mainly literary critics and theorists, but also some clinicians — were fascinated by psychoanalysis. Many of Freud's works were translated. The Japanese occupation and the Communists’ accession to power put an end to organized interest. In the 1950s there was a slow resurgence of interest, but the Cultural Revolution and the subsequent change in the status of intellectuals ended that.
By the 1980s, attention to psychoanalysis was again on the rise, particularly among literary scholars. Wang Ning, a prominent literary theorist, wrote his doctoral dissertation on “Psychoanalysis and Chinese Literature” at that time. As in most parts of the world, Chinese literary critics and theorists found Lacan more congenial, and their readings of Freud were limited in scope and sophistication. Clinical attention was also limited. In recent years there has been an increase in clinical interest, limited by access to Western clinicians who speak Chinese.
When I visited China twenty years ago, everyone wore navy blue or brown Mao outfits. The few black and white billboards displayed only slogans, and construction was minimal. In 2001 the changes were startling. Now young and old dressed much as they do in the US; there were enormous numbers of billboards in bright colors advertising consumer goods and multinational corporations; and new high-rises and road construction were everywhere. Twenty years ago, bicycles were ubiquitous; now private cars caused traffic jams.
I was most impressed by the energy, enthusiasm, and warm hospitality of the people I met. Each lecture was followed by a banquet, usually served in a private room at a restaurant, and consisting of almost uncountable courses of the most extraordinary food. At no meal was rice served. Apparently, rice is now a symbol of poverty, and there is great pride that they no longer have to eat it to fill up. Both in Beijing and Sichuan, I stayed at university guesthouses, essentially air-conditioned hotels with cafeterias and restaurants for both Chinese and foreign visiting scholars and students.
I was not aware of anti-American feeling, either among the scholars or among people in stores or on the streets. I should note that I did not visit the countryside, as I had done twenty years before. Before going to China, our group (mostly Yale scholars attending a conference on internationalism and literary theory) was briefed by the State Department. We were told we could say anything we wanted to, and only to exercise caution about repeating anything told to us in private. One of the Yale scholars, a legal theorist and gay man, gave a well-received paper about cultural influences on Japanese legislation concerning gay rights. I had a number of very frank discussions about problems in doing psychoanalysis in China and about mental hospitals.
The first two of my four invitations came from Wang Ning, whom I had met during his visit to the States a year ago. I had been asked to prepare hour-and-a-half lectures. I began to learn something about China: The Chinese work very, very hard. Lectures are often two hours long; several times I was scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. or to lecture from 7:30 p.m. until 10 p.m.
I spoke first at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. This group, to my surprise, consisted of literary scholars, and thus I learned something about the academic organization of fields of study. Literary studies are often part of social science departments; psychology is a division of philosophy departments. Thinking that I was to address a group of social scientists, I had prepared a lecture on the history of American psychoanalysis, with an emphasis on the kinds of internal and external political troubles we have had. The lecture had been translated into Chinese and distributed. When I discovered that the group consisted of literary theorists, I changed my hat and spoke on the uses of psychoanalysis in literary theory and criticism.
While some members of the group of about twenty-five understood English, Kang-I Chang, the chair of East Asian Studies at Yale, was there to translate. The group was very sophisticated, knowledgeable about Lacan and literary work in the West. They were less familiar with Freud, but they were interested both in Freudian theory and its use in literary studies. The discussion was a lively one.
The next day I delivered a lecture to graduate students and faculty in the department of literature at Tsinghua University. Since I knew that this was to be a lecture to literary folks, I had prepared process notes from a session of an analytic patient in an attempt to show the differences between a fictional text and what a patient says. I then discussed the differences between the interpretations made by literary critics and those made by analysts. This material had previously been made available to the group of (predominantly) English-speaking scholars. Again there was a lively and searching discussion.
Teresa Yuan, a psychoanalyst from Buenos Aires, chair of the IPA China Division, had arranged for me to lecture at the Chengdu Psychoanalytic Center in Sichuan. The center comprises some fifty psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors, both students and graduates, and is affiliated with the Sichuan Provincial Association of Philosophy. Many members of the group spoke English or French. Datong Hua, the only psychoanalyst in China, heads this group. He returned from five years of Lacanian training in Paris in 1993 and began to train candidates the next year.
At present there are ten candidates, all of whom hold doctorates in psychology; one is
Elise W. Snyder, M.D., APsaA councilor-at-large, former managing editor of TAP, and former chair of the Membership Committee, now chairs the Committee on Societies.
planning to go to medical school. Nine of the ten candidates are men, but most of the counselors are women. The candidates are all members of the psychology faculty, which is a division of the university's Department of Philosophy. Some of the senior candidates have begun control analyses. Foremost among the candidates is Qin Wei, who has visited the United States and who acted as my translator. I am arranging for him to come to the United States in 2002 to deliver some lectures.
Last year the center received permission from the Education Ministry to inaugurate a clinical master's degree program in psychoanalysis at Sichuan University. (Would that the American universities and government were as receptive to psychoanalysis!) For the past two years, the center has published a quarterly journal, Psychoanalysis Notes, that prints original articles in Chinese, translations into Chinese of summaries of articles from Western journals (e.g., JAPA, TAP, and Psychoanalytic Inquiry) and articles in English (including original articles, Datong's lectures, case conferences, and many downloads from the World-Wide Web). In 2000, the center held a major conference celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams. Since 1994 there have been weekly seminars on the works of Freud, and since 1999, weekly seminars on Lacan's work and a bi-monthly case conference.
Each of my two lectures in Chengdu was attended by nearly forty people. I described psychoanalytic training in the United States and then focused on technique, having sent ahead articles by Paul Gray and Owen Renik. The group was astonished, both by the length of training in the United States and by the cost. They were perplexed by the declining interest in psychoanalysis in the United States, both institutionally and in the number of candidates. In their enthusiasm about psychoanalysis, they resembled young American therapists of the 1950s and '60s. For example, a school psychologist, not a candidate, had been analyzed and spoke with me about using psychoanalytic ideas in her work with children and their families. Several young people sought me out for private consultations, which I conducted in a nearby teahouse.
The Chengdu group was very sophisticated about the writings of Freud and very interested in the differences between Lacanian and Freudian technique. They were startled by the length of our sessions and the number of sessions per week, but they were interested in other aspects of technique as well. I had prepared detailed process notes, which we discussed, and they spoke about their own cases. It is my impression that the interpretations they made to their patients were far more abstract — even metapsychological — than those we use. My use of colloquial language in my interpretations seemed quite strange to them.
Our discussion sessions, which lasted about three hours each, were the most interesting and exciting I have ever had. I am going to be given an honorary visiting professorship and have been invited back to teach and supervise. I can't wait.