30 YEARS OF CHINESE CLINICAL-PSYCHOLOGY

Like other branches of psychology, China's clinical psychology has traveled an uneven path of development in the past 30-odd years. From 1949, when the country was liberated, until the eve of the Great Cultural Revolution, in 1966, psychologists underwent the ideological conditioning common to intellectuals in that period, and most of them adopted Marxism as their guiding principle. They systematically studied the works of Pavlov and established a physiological laboratory in which the conditioned reflex was used in the study of mental functioning. In 1958, under the stimulus and encouragement of the party's general line, clinical psychologists walked out of their laboratories, as did their colleagues in other disciplines. In order better to serve medical practice, they collaborated with other relevant medical units in giving rapid, comprehensive treatment, focused mainly on psychotherapy, particularly to patients with neurasthenia.* The results were remarkably better than in the past. Similar treatment was subsequently given to patients with chronic mental or physical disorders such as schizophrenia, hypertension, or ulcers; again, successful results were obtained, and drew the medical world's attention to the work of clinical psychologists. With the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, the study of