Counseling Psychology in China: Past and Present
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Counseling Psychology in China: Past and Present Timothy C. Thomason & Xiao Qiong
Published online: 26 July 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008
Abstract Ancient Chinese philosophers were interested in ways to promote psychological development and they made significant contributions, particularly in the area of mental testing. In the twentieth century the Chinese focused on behavioral psychology, and the field suffered a great setback during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. However, more recently, psychology has received governmental support, and psychologists in China today are rapidly developing the field of counseling psychology. This paper puts Chinese psychology in historical context and describes many current practices and needs regarding counseling psychology. Keywords Counseling . Psychology . Psychotherapy . China . Chinese
Introduction This paper provides a brief overview of the history of psychological thinking in China and a description of the current status of counseling psychology in that setting. It will be seen that while many ancient ideas are still respected, contemporary psychologists in China are interested in bringing in the best of Western thinking and practices to create a holistic Chinese psychological approach to counseling and psychotherapy.
Ancient Chinese Ideas About Psychology The study of psychological issues has a long history in China. About 2,500 years ago Confucius said that human nature is the order of heaven, meaning it is caused by Nature or T. C. Thomason (*) Department of Educational Psychology, Northern Arizona University, P.O. Box 5774, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA e-mail: [email protected] X. Qiong Xi’an Shiyou University, Xi’an, China
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God (Higgins and Zheng 2002). Confucius believed that people are similar when they are born, but become different as a result of social moulding, so education is very important. He said that development is a life-long process, and everyone can benefit from education. Confucius taught that serenity and clarity of mind result from living in accordance with practical wisdom based on metaphysical laws (Bankart 1997). Chinese Taoist scholars taught that opposites function to maintain the harmony of the cosmos. Oppositions such as Yin and Yang, light and dark, birth and decay, and male and female, operate together to form the Tao, or Way. Taoism’s founder, Lao-tzu taught that nature keeps a proper balance; any extreme in one direction eventually swings back toward the opposite (Lao-tse 2007). C. G. Jung incorporated this idea into his theory (Jung 1968), and the self-actualization theories of Abraham Maslow (1971) and Carl Rogers (1961) have some similarities to ideas in Taoism and Zen Buddhism. The first Chinese encyclopedia of medicine, published about 2,000 years ago, linked psychological problems to brain pathology (Wang 1993). Sun-Tzu’s book The Art of War (Sun-Tzu 2005), which was written 2,500 years ago, could be seen as a forerunner to modern organizational psychology. This book t
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