Mental health and illness in traditional India and China

Abstract

Biomedical knowledge underlies the science of all national systems of psychiatry and is integral to international psychiatry. It is grounded in Western systems of thought, values, and world views. In assessing the cultural and national presuppositions of contemporary psychiatry, it is desirable to analyze other systems of practice. In this article, some of the characteristics of ancient, non-Western traditions of mental health and approaches to mental illness are discussed. In reviewing salient characteristics of the approach to mental health and illness of India and China, one is provided with a vivid illustration of the interplay between culture and a system of psychiatric practice. The secular and essentially impersonal features of modern biomedical psychiatry contrast with the spiritual, value-laden, but also naturalistic basis of ancient traditions and approaches to mental health and illness.