Social welfare policy: social rehabilitation of psychiatric patients in urban China

Abstract

Background: The background of this paper is an empirical research on social rehabilitation of psychiatric patients in a large urban city in China during the post-Mao period, the Beijing Psychiatric Rehabilitation Research. Another aspect of this background is an exchange with Chen Sheying, a colleague interested in social services for the elderly in China. The underlying assumption of this paper is the multiple similarities between those two areas.

Objectives: The first objective of this paper is to present a contextual analysis of the development of psychiatric rehabilitation in urban China and a second objective is to stress the similarities between psychiatric rehabilitation and social services to the elderly.

Material: The material presented, while referring mainly to the general context of psychiatry and rehabilitation around that period, includes some data from the Beijing research. There are five analytical dimensions: (1) epistemological choices and research paradigms; (2) rehabilitation as an idea; (3) rehabilitation as a social, political and cultural matter; (4) factors of change in the recent history of China; and, finally, (5) mental illness as a personal experience.

Discussion: This presentation leads to a discussion about the multiple similarities between the social welfare of two vulnerable categories of people (i.e. psychiatric patients and the elderly). It also offers, in the specific field of mental illness, a general interpretation of the rapid social changes in urban China.

Conclusion: The conclusion is that psychiatric and ageing services are both a product of interaction among various cultural and social-political-economic factors. Any social welfare intervention or policy should be based on a thorough understanding of the five dimensions referred to earlier, including the traditional Chinese familism and structural dimensions of the post-Mao 'economic state' orientation.