Documentary | 29 June 2021

Mental health has long been a stigmatized topic in China. Under Chairman Mao’s rule, psychology was dismissed as a bourgeois self-delusion, and was even banned until the 1970s. But since the early 2000s, growing interest in mental health has created what’s known as a “psycho-boom”: more and more Chinese are opening up about their mental health struggles and seeking treatment. The collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic has further allowed people to open up in ways that never before seemed possible. Pop psychology and mindfulness-oriented apps have flourished, giving once-stigmatized discussions of mental wellbeing a new lifestyle cachet. This surge in interest has created a new problem, though—with lack of regulation in mental health care making it difficult for people in need to find reliable therapists.