Healthy Minds, Compliant Citizens: The Politics of "Mental Hygiene" in Republican China, 1928–1937

Baum, Emily

doi:10.1353/tcc.2017.0021

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The future of China seemed hopeless, and to many reformers, the creation of a “new‐citizen” ( xinmin ) and “new‐nation” ( xinguo ) required a thorough spiritual revolution ( gexin ) of the Chinese people (Yu, 1932b). While some turned to anarchism, communism, eugenics, Buddhism, or psychoanalysis (Baum, 2017; Huang, 2015; Zarrow, 2005; Zhang, 1992), others hailed psychical research as the ideal tool for social change. Reconciling material and mental realities, it was celebrated as an advanced form of science that no longer relegated the psychical to positions of inferiority and backwardness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Children featured prominently in such literary works. Not only were they believed to be among the most suggestible subjects, but they also represented the future of the country and its only hope for survival—a widespread feeling in early‐20th‐century China (Baum, 2017). Moreover, hypnotism promised not only to heal illnesses of the mind and body but also improve moral and civic education just as it had done in Japan (Wu, 2019).…”

Section: Psychical Research In Chinese Newspapersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The power within: Mass media, scientific entertainment, and the introduction of psychical research into China, 1900–1920

Junqueira

2022

J History Behavioral Science

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How did a new science initially promoted by only a few individuals eventually become a widespread cultural phenomenon practiced and known by thousands of people? Following a transnational approach, this article traces the introduction of psychical research into China during the first two decades of the 20th century. Known in the Republican period (1912-1949) as Spiritual Science (xinling kexue or xinling yanjiu), psychical research flourished between the 1920s and 1930s, playing a key role in the popularization of applied psychology and mind-cure across China. This article takes a step back from the heyday of Spiritual Science by looking at the period that immediately preceded and helped define it. Focused on wide-circulation newspapers, popular manuals, and stage performances, it teases out the ways in which Chinese popular culture translated European, American, and Japanese psychical research to local Chinese audiences in the midst of China's search for modernity. By naturalizing the reality of psychic powers, spiritual scientists blurred the boundaries between science and superstition in a period when these were posited as diametrically opposed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Psychical Research In Chinese Newspapersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The power within: Mass media, scientific entertainment, and the introduction of psychical research into China, 1900–1920

Junqueira

2022

J History Behavioral Science

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“…In addition, psychologists with a behaviorist orientation, as Baum (2015) pointed out, were keen to align themselves with the Nationalist project of state-building. The establishment of the short-lived National Association of Mental Hygiene in 1936, through the initiative of a group of psychologists at China’s most important psychological department at the National Central University in Nanjing, demonstrates this utilitarian and Nationalist orientation (Baum, in press). Nevertheless, given its violent and turbulent history, Republican China did not provide a favorable opportunity for either psy sciences or mental health institutions to develop on any large scale.…”

Section: Psychiatry and Mental Hygiene In Republican China And Shanghaimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More importantly, a new account of mental hygiene in late Republican Shanghai provides an opportunity to revisit the history of psychiatry and psy sciences in China. Commentators have so far framed this history in relation to knowledge transfer (Pearson, 2014; Szto, 2002), nation and society building (Baum, 2015, in press), social control (Ma, 2014), professional and political commitments (Blowers, Cheung, & Ru, 2009; Blowers & Wang, 2014; Wang, 2016), and other interesting themes. Most of the aforementioned studies tend to revolve around the professional and social interests of Chinese mental hygienists or trace their academic lineage to Western and Japanese psychiatric and psychological ideas.…”

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confidence: 99%

An international teamwork: Mental hygiene in Shanghai during the 1930s and 1940s.

Wang¹

2019

History of Psychology

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Mental hygiene experienced significant growth on an international level in the first half of the 20th century. A concept of American origin, mental hygiene developed into various forms in different cultural and national contexts. With a large international settlement and vibrant cultural activities, Shanghai witnessed a rise of interest in preventing mental illnesses and promoting mental health during the 1930s and early 1940s. The city gradually became one of the most important places for providing mental hygiene services in China. Apart from the establishment of mental hospitals, departments of neuropsychiatry, and child guidance clinics, people from various disciplines, sectors, and nationalities united to deliver health services to the foreign as well as local Chinese population. The present study first examines the social and cultural conditions that made possible, according to contemporary firsthand accounts, this international “teamwork.” Taking the establishment of The Mercy Hospital for Nervous Diseases and the organization of child guidance clinics as examples, this study investigates the ways in which knowledge and practices of different origins were combined and transformed. In contrast to previous depictions of the development of psychiatry and mental hygiene in Republican China as a product of missionary influence, scientific progress, or social control, this study seeks to illuminate the interplay of international and local forces in negotiating the meaning of mental hygiene and creating a flexible public health model characteristic of Shanghai’s political and social makeup.

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Healthy Minds, Compliant Citizens: The Politics of "Mental Hygiene" in Republican China, 1928–1937

Cited by 2 publications

References 20 publications

The power within: Mass media, scientific entertainment, and the introduction of psychical research into China, 1900–1920

The power within: Mass media, scientific entertainment, and the introduction of psychical research into China, 1900–1920

An international teamwork: Mental hygiene in Shanghai during the 1930s and 1940s.

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