Abstract
Modern western clinical psychology entered Mainland China at the beginning of the twentieth century and had developed rapidly since 2001, when a series of government measures were issued to promote the popularity of psychological counseling and therapy service in public. However, a great deal of problems still remains in this field. For example, even the notion of “Clinical Psychology” is rather vague. These problems cast a shadow over the future of clinical psychology in China. Based on academic literature, government documents and the authors’ rich expert experiences, this chapter reviews the development of clinical psychology in China during the past century, introduces the current situation of psychological counseling and therapy service, identifies major obstacles to the development of clinical psychology and proposes possible solutions to these problems. To be specific, this chapter consists of nine sections. It first clarifies the notion of “Clinical Psychology” and gives a brief review of the historical development of clinical psychology in the second section. The third section mainly introduces the current situation of professional training which was mainly available in universities and was supplemented with some training programs provided by social institutions. The fourth section presents a few details of the current mental health service market, including diverse psychological providers, common service delivery forms and service fee issues. The fifth section compares the usage of three diagnosis and classification systems for mental disorders, and summarizes significant trends and challenges in clinical psychology research publications. The sixth section introduces major professional societies or associations which were closely related to the development of clinical psychology. The seventh section discusses issues of professional rules and regulations with a call for improvement. Finally, this chapter is summed up in three main challenges and a brighter outlook for the future development of clinical psychology in China.
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Wang, J., Wang, Z., Yu, M. (2017). China. In: Hofmann, S. (eds) International Perspectives on Psychotherapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56194-3_8
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