Originally published: . Volume 1, No. 9. Source pages: 9.
A rising middle-class in China and increasing Westernization of Chinese culture has generated a high demand for psychological services. China is seeing a rise in anxiety and depression. Suicide rates in China are higher than worldwide averages.
Historical forces, such as the intellectual, scientific and academic devastation caused by the “Cultural Revolution,” have created deficits in the knowledge and training required to develop a Chinese mental health treatment community. Young Chinese scientists and mental health professionals are determined to remedy the situation.
Chinese psychologists and psychiatrists have called to the West for training. They want to lay a foundation on which they can build their own body of professional knowledge and psychotherapy technique.
The China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA) has answered the call. CAPA has developed a program that includes both face to face educational experiences, with American professionals going to China and Chinese professionals coming to the United States, and on-line studies. CAPA members, American psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic therapists, from all mental health professions work over Skype teaching classes and providing supervision to Chinese professionals developing mental health services in their communities. CAPA members conduct psychoanalytic psychotherapy, a required component of the training, as well. For Chinese psychologists and psychiatrists who want to train in psychoanalysis, CAPA supplies analysts for training analyses and supervision. The demand for treatment and training far outstrips the supply of teachers, supervisors, therapists and psychoanalysts.
Information about CAPA can be found at www.capachina.org
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.