Shanghai XuHui Mental Health Center, No. 249, LangHua West Street, Shanghai 200232, People's Republic of China
In response to Lyons (2001) and Kumar (2000), I have been working on the research of Qigong-related mental disorder and culture-bound syndrome in China for over a decade and I feel it is unfair for psychiatry in China to be represented by their remarks. I would argue that it is the misuse of Qigong, rather than misuse of psychiatry, that is at issue in China, according to my experience of research of Falun Gong-related mental disorder and culture-bound syndrome (Shan et al, 1987, 2000; Shan, 1999). Some of the reports about the abuse of psychiatry in China are based on political issues and lack any awareness of academic research and study in China. In fact, Qigong was misused in China, and the patients and practitioners who suffered with Falun-Gong-related mental disorders need to be treated in psychiatry. I must call for more experts in psychiatry and in the World Psychiatric Association to pay attention to the research of Qigong- and Falun-Gong-related mental disorders.
REFERENCES
Kumar, S. (2000) International concern grows over psychiatric abuses in China. Lancet, 356, 920.
Lyons, D. (2001) Soviet-style psychiatry is
alive and well in the People's Republic (letter). British Journal
of Psychiatry, 178,
380-381.
Shan, H. (1999) Clinical diagnoses and Qigong-induced mental disorder (in Chinese). Chinese Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 25, 180-189.
Shan, H., Yan, H. J., Xu, S. H., et al (1987) A study of the clinical phenomenology of mental disorders induced by Qigong (in Chinese). Chinese Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 13, 266-269.
Shan, H., Tao, M. Y. & Yu, Y. P. (2000) Falun Gong-related mental disorders (in Chinese). Journal of Clinical Psychological Medicine, 10, 345-347.[CrossRef]
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