Introduction

Hsuan-Ying Huang is a medical anthropologist with a geographical focus on China and prior training in psychiatry. He obtained an M.D. from National Taiwan University in 2003 and a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University in 2013. Before taking up his post at Chinese University of Hong Kong at the end of 2015, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian Centre on China in the World, Australian National University. His research interests revolve around the development of modern psy-sciences (psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, etc.) in the context of cross-cultural transfer and rapid social change. Since 2008 he has been studying one local manifestation of this global trend—the rise of Western-style psychotherapy in urban China, known as the “psycho-boom” (xinli re). His research explores how this evolution—in both its professional and popular aspects—has taken shape under the confluence of technical, moral, and politico-economic forces; it also examines how individual and interpersonal experiences related to psychotherapy reflect its developments, as well as broader cultural and societal shifts. His articles have appeared in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry; China Perspectives; and a number of edited volumes.

Research interests

Medical and psychiatric anthropology, contemporary China, history of psychiatry, psychotherapy research, digital mental health, and mental health policy

Geographical areas of research

Urban China

Courses taught

ANTH 2320/UGEC 2667 Culture and Mind
ANTH 2321/UGEC 2654 From Madness to Mental Health
ANTH 2340/UGEC 2960 Magic, Myth, and the Supernatural
ANTH 2410/UGEA 2180 Chinese Culture and Society
ANTH 3321/ANTH 5321 Culture, Psychiatry, and Mental Illness
ANTH 3440 Anthropological Field Study (Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Community Mental Health)
ANTH 4330/ANTH 5325 Medicine, Health, and Culture

Current research

Digital mental health in China (ECS scheme 2019-2020: When Psycho-Boom Meets Start Frenzy: An Ethnographic Study of the Psy-Startups in China)

Selected Publications
(See https://cuhk.academia.edu/HsuanYingHuang for a complete list.)

Book chapters and journal articles

2019 “Mental Health.” In The Making of the Human Sciences in China: Historical and Conceptual Foundations, edited by Howard Chiang, 460-488. Leiden and Boston: Brill. (co-authored with Wang Wen-Ji)

2018 “Untamed Jianghu or Emerging Profession: Diagnosing the Psycho-Boom amid China’s Mental Health Legislation.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 42 (2): 371-400.

2017 “Therapy Made Easy: E-Commerce and Infrastructure in China’s Psycho-Boom.” China Perspectives (2017/4): 29-38.

2015 “From Psychotherapy to Psycho-Boom: A Historical Overview of Psychotherapy in China.” Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in China 1 (1): 1-30.

2014 “The Emergence of the Psycho-Boom in Contemporary Urban China.” In Psychiatry and Chinese History, edited by Howard Chiang, 183-204. London: Pickering & Chatto.