The Moral Career of 'Outmates': Towards a History of Manufactured Mental Disorders in Post-Socialist China

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Abstract

This study focuses on 'manufactured mentally ill' (bei jingshenbing) individuals in post-socialist China. In Chinese society, bei jingshenbing is a neologistic catchphrase that refers to someone who has been misidentified as exhibiting symptoms of mental illness and has been admitted to a mental hospital. Specifically, it refers to those individuals who were subjected to unnecessary psychiatric treatment during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Based on archival analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, this study addresses the ways in which the voices of bei jingshenbing victims and those who support them reveal China's experiences with psychiatric modernity. It also discusses the active role of these individuals in knowledge production, medical policymaking, and the implications for reforming the psychiatric and mental health systems in post-socialist China.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)87-104
Number of pages18
JournalMedical History
Volume60
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015 Dec 10

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Nursing
  • Medicine (miscellaneous)
  • History

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