Mental Health In Chinese Culture Essay

In many cultures, mental health is viewed in various of ways, due to their culture and beliefs. One specific interesting culture is the Chinese culture and how they view mental health perceptions. Mental illness is seen to be hereditary and un-curable, their commonly termed “shen jing bing” or a mentally ill person (defined to be disorders in the nervous system). A mental health illness is believed to occur when a person has an imbalance within the body and can come from an excess or a deficiency of yin and yang that can disrupt the flow of qi or energy throughout the body. Typically when they believe someone to have a mental illness they are scared to associate or interact with them, because of their belief it could be contagious and/or would bring bad luck into their life; Not only are they singled out but put down as weak, fearful, and violent. They believe one who is suffering from mental illness is receiving a punishment due to a previous misdeed they have …show more content…
John G. Kerr which who established a fundamental belief that: “patients with a mental illness should not be blamed for their actions; the patients that were hospitalized are not in a prison but are in a hospital and should be treated as human beings, and not as animals” as quoted by Dr. John G. Kerr. According to a study that has been done by “The Lancet” a general medical journal, published by Thomas Wakley, who was also an English surgeon, his studies showed that about 173 million Chinese suffered from a mental health disorder and about 158 million of them have never received the right professional help for their mental illness. Another study done between the years of 2003 and 2008 showed the number of people with a mental illness increased more than 50 percent, although some of the studies can be found because of improved diagnosis, or from having more stressful life and living