Reading Report 4

Moral Anxiety and Psycho-Boom in Contemporary China

Name: Andi Arifuddin Alam

Student ID: MG1834501

The moral is one part of the order of people's lives. Most people tend to act morally and
follow social guidelines. Morality often requires people to sacrifice their short-term interests for
the benefit of society. The moral is one part of the order of people's lives. Most people tend to act
morally and follow social guidelines. Morality often requires people to sacrifice their short-term
interests for the benefit of society. Morals can also be defined as principles that guide the
behavior of individuals in society. Although morals can change over time, they remain the
standard of conduct to judge right and wrong. Morals can also be the applicable standards of
behavior that allow people to live cooperatively in groups. Morals refer to what society sanctions
are right and acceptable. People who violate moral standards are called immoral people.

In contemporary China, individual narratives about the pursuit of happiness typically

include the elements of aspiration, determination, hard work, and the importance of personal
connections (guanxi). Most people's key point of departure is the revelation that their
individualism is central to their moral obligations and practices. Leslie T. Chang (2008) takes a
closer look at the various efforts the young women make to reinvent themselves and become
someone they long to be. Some underage girls used the identity cards of a cousin or a classmate,
and as time went by, they became so closely identified with the fake name that they would not
answer their real names. Many others took commercial classes during their limited spare time to
upgrade their work skills and move up to a higher level.

There is a very inspiring and emotional speech from a 17-year-old teenage girl, and she
said, "In a factory with one thousand or ten thousand people, to have the boss discover you are
very hard. It would help if you discovered yourself. You must develop yourself. To jump out of
the factory, you must study. You are here because you don't want to be an ordinary worker with
a dull life. If you are waiting for your company to lift you, you will grow old waiting" (Chang
2008: 174).
 Sigmund Freud views humans as being pushed towards reducing tension to reduce feelings
of anxiety. When some anxiety occurs, the mind responds in two ways: First, problem-solving
efforts are increased, and Second, self-defense mechanisms are triggered. But when anxiety
becomes overwhelming, the human mind must defend itself. In this concept of anxiety, Freud
concentrated on strengthening the ego through psychoanalysis and gave his ideas about anxiety.
Freud also defined three main types of anxiety, explaining the difference between reality anxiety,
neurotic anxiety, and moral anxiety. (1) Reality anxiety stems from the fear of dangers that
threaten the real world. This anxiety leads us to deal with risk, and not infrequently, the fear that
prevents this reality becomes extreme. (2) Neurotic Anxiety, This anxiety has a basis in
childhood and conflicts between instinct and reality. For example, in childhood, sometimes a
child experiences punishment from parents due to impulsive id needs, especially those related to
the fulfillment of sexual or aggressive instincts. (3) Moral Anxiety is a fear of the individual's
conscience. When individuals are motivated to express instinctual impulses contrary to moral
values, they will feel ashamed and guilty. Moral anxiety explains how the superego develops;
individuals with strong consciences usually experience greater conflict than individuals with
looser moral tolerance conditions. Sigmund Freud (in Corey, 1996: 5) explains that moral
anxiety fears one's conscience. People with well-developed consciences tend to feel guilty when
they do something that goes against their moral code.

At the beginning of 2017, therapists across China excitedly welcomed the issuing of a
policy directive, ‘Guideline on Improving Psychological Health Services’. The number of state
council ministries and commissions that co-signed it — twenty-two in total — was encouraging
news to members of a young but vibrant profession.

The psychological consequences of the disaster - couched in the language of Post-

Traumatic Stress Disorder - were quickly apparent given the scale of the disaster and the number
of children killed; ‘talk therapy’ was deemed the most appropriate treatment. The field had
already enjoyed modest popularity since the inauguration of the national certification for
‘psychological counsellors’ in 2002, a new system outside the universities and the hospitals,
which respectively trained psychologists and psychiatrists. But after 2008, psychotherapy
training and practice became increasingly popular, especially, in major cities like Beijing and
Shanghai, creating a thriving scene that earned the title of ‘psychoboom’.
 During the Mao era, the state had attacked psychology as ‘bourgeois pseudo-science,’
eventually abolishing the discipline during the Cultural Revolution; the Soviet model, which
emphasised the neurophysiological basis of illness, was the norm in mental healthcare. The
practice of psychotherapy only became possible after the launch of economic reforms but
remained rare in the 1980s and 1990s. Through to the 2000s, the popular perspective on the
growth of psychotherapy was that it reflected economic prosperity. It was widely believed that
the proliferation of mental illness and distress was due to the stresses of modern life with its
economic pressures and social dislocations, and that after fulfilling basic material needs, people
would inevitably pursue psychological wellbeing and happiness.

By the early 2000s, leading psychiatrists and psychologists, writing in China Mental
Health Journal, postulated that China would need as many as one or two million therapists to
meet the mental health needs of its population. Many who entered the profession seemed to have
pictured therapy as an expensive service targetting the middle class, and as a respectable and
financially rewarding occupation for the therapist.

The Mental Health Law on psychotherapy proved limited in its enforcement, and private
practice had become less risky and more lucrative; the number of therapists who thrived in their
businesses had increased substantially. However, what truly changed things was the rise of
digital startups that offered psychotherapy and counselling services. These companies belonged
to the new wave of startup entrepreneurship that took encouragement from the state’s Mass
Entrepreneurship and Innovation campaign that commenced in 2015. The most notable examples
included MyTherapist; an online platform connecting clients with therapists meeting the
company’s own rigorous standards; and KnowYourself (abbreviated as ‘KY’); a new media
channel propagating popular psychology with attitude, focussing on the confusions and
aspirations during emerging adulthood. Both of them had raised a lot of venture capital money.