Breathing Spaces : Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China

The charismatic form of healing called qigong, based on meditative breathing exercises, has achieved enormous popularity in China during the last two decades. Qigong served a critical social organizational function, as practitioners formed new informal networks, sometimes on an international scale, at a time when China was shifting from state-subsidized medical care to for-profit market medicine. The emergence of new psychological states deemed to be deviant led the Chinese state to "medicalize" certain forms while championing scientific versions of qigong. By contrast, qigong continues to be promoted outside China as a traditional healing practice. Breathing Spaces brings to life the narratives of numerous practitioners, healers, psychiatric patients, doctors, and bureaucrats, revealing the varied and often dramatic ways they cope with market reform and social changes in China. Anthropologist Nancy Chen Examines The Cultural Context Of Medicine And Healing Practices In The Prc, Taiwan And The United States And The Pages Of Her Book Come Alive With The Narratives Of The Numerous Practitioners, Healers, Psychiatric Patients, Doctors And Bureaucrats She Interviewed. 1. Introduction -- 2. Fever -- 3. Riding The Tiger -- 4. Qigong Deviation Or Psychosis -- 5. Chinese Psychiatry And The Search For Order -- 6. Mandate Of Science -- 7. Transnational Qigong -- 8. Suffering And Healing. Nancy N. Chen. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [199]-232) And Index. A DEEP BREATH of fresh air was always on my mind when I began field research on psychiatric practices and mental health care in Beijing during the winter of 1990.