Two Chinese psychologists talk about divorce, stockpiling and crying into your mask
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskI was born in Ningxia province, where the goji berries are grown. I studied psychology at medical school. But in the late 1980s, when I graduated, people thought psychologists were only for lunatics. It was shameful to see one – if you worked in that field, you starved. I taught medical ethics for six years, then I started a business. Potatoes grow naturally on Ningxia’s high plateau, but it’s so remote that many rot.
You can’t limit sessions like that to 50 minutes. You stay with people on the phone or computer, sometimes for the whole afternoon. You ask them to think of a happy memory, a time they felt safe. Sometimes they fall asleep, and that’s good. Or you help them cry, and that’s good, too.Some of my patients were surprisingly happy when the lockdown began. There was a couple and the husband had had an affair.
Many of my clients don’t live in Shanghai – they prefer talking to someone far away, because they worry that a local therapist would leak their stories. I often see common themes. Many Chinese are afraid of two things: negative feelings and shame. Often, if a grandparent dies when the child isn’t there, parents don’t tell them about it until later. The parents don’t want to “disturb” their children with bad news. They can’t allow them to be sad.
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