Hi Silverboy. I hope you'll forgive me for responding to your post. I had just finished typing my reply to Andrew but that post has gone, so as you've mentioned our 'hosts' I will reply.

If we can put aside any perceived grammar errors, and the appropriateness of the subject matter in Andrew's view, I feel this is a useful area for discussion for two main reasons. The first reason is that there are cultural issues in China in the way mental illness is handled. The second reason is the scope of the problem in China.

In some countries there is a stigma attached to mental illness and people are treated accordingly. In other countries, psychotherapy and psychiatry are common. America has created an industry of ‘shrinks’ that help individuals with their problems. Consider how many movie and music stars will refer to their therapist in biographies or magazine articles.

If we look at the UK, there are any number of organisations, often designated as charities, that offer guidance and support to people with issues in their lives – Relate for marriage guidance counselling; Mind, a lobbying group and information source, are a few examples. Over-prescription of tranquilizers is common in the UK and I once heard the phrase, “She’s sleeping with Prince Valium tonight.”

Mental illness is a taboo phrase in some societies and it is those societies that we should attempt to understand through their cultural approaches in dealing with this important issue. The question Turnoi has addressed is whether culture is a prime factor. And by culture he means things like “face” , lien and so on.

The British medical journal, The Lancet has many scholarly articles on mental illness and its diagnosis. The abstract I quote from suggests that in China there are problems with diagnosis, and also that there are not enough mental health practitioners for the population. Given that there is also a shortage of qualified doctors in China (general practitioners, GPs in the UK) this is not surprising.

The work of Phillips et al [1]b suggests that

“most mental disorders in China are either chronically persistent or a very recent phenomenon.”

And lest we forget, in totalitarian societies, mental illness is a convenient label for those who have shown any dissent from the prevailing ideology.

“It has been nearly 35 years since the end of the Cultural Revolution, when mental illness was declared a bourgeois self-delusion and the sick were treated with readings from Chairman Mao. Psychiatric treatment has returned. But mental health remains a medical backwater, desperately short of financing, practitioners and esteem.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/world/asia/11psych.html?pagewanted=all

So is mental illness a legitimate topic for discussion or a lecture? Of course it is but not as a way of explaining all behaviour. Turnoi does not mention the make-up of his Chinese audience which I feel is a glaring omission.

[1] Phillips MR, Zhang J, Shi Q, et al. Prevalence, treatment, and associated disability of mental disorders in four provinces in China during 2001—05: an epidemiological survey. Lancet 2009; 373: 2041-2053

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961700-1/fulltext

Why China Leads the World in Mental Illness | Thinking About China ...
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CL is a psychology graduate who has undertaken academic work in two UK mental hospitals, working with patients diagnosed with chronic hyper-mania and schizophrenia.