Societal change and language change in China: Language-switching during multilingual dynamic psychotherapy.

Abstract

The use of multiple languages during psychotherapies has been noted for over 100 years, since Breuer's famous Viennese patient, Anna O., spoke in English. In this article, the authors demonstrate the meanings of language usage to 3 Chinese people in treatment in Shanghai, China. Like many educated people in Shanghai in the 21st century, they were trilingual, in Mandarin, Shanghainese, and English. Their switches in language during treatment suggested that their current problems had been generated by culture, Chinese governmental policy, social factors, interpersonal and intrapsychic conflicts involving self-states, and the enduring effects of unresolved childhood trauma. Their language-switching was noted during therapy and proved to be useful in resolving their presenting problems.

Book Reviews: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Trauma: Post-Traumatic Mental Functioning, the Zero Process, and the Construction of Reality

“…Transgenerational transmission of traumatic memories (Cao, Blackman, & Xu 2018; Tummala-Nara 2020; Volkan 2014) can simultaneously occur through the “depositing” mechanism used by the original traumatees, abetted by a form of introjection used by their targets. The shards of memory act “like a memory that has not yet happened” because of the failure of integration, similar to the “if only” fantasies described by Akhtar (1994).…”

Multilingualism of Shanghai Indigenous Residents

“…There are also professional schools for adults to learn English from every level (Boshier et al, 2006). Nowadays, code-switching between Chinese and English has increased in international businesses, where English has become the common language to interact with foreigners (Cao et al, 2018), which makes English more and more popular in the global port of Shanghai.…”

“…However, the language shift from Shanghainese to Mandarin occurred just within the last two decades. Influenced by national policies such as Mandarin Promotion in 2005, young Shanghai residents have gradually become generally trilingual among Mandarin Shanghainese and English through schooling, whereas the old generation continued to use Shanghainese and did not have a desire to switch (Cao et al, 2018).…”