Breathing spaces : qigong, psychiatry, and healing in China
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Breathing spaces : qigong, psychiatry, and healing in China
Columbia University Press, c2003
- : cloth
- : pbk
Available at / 2 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [199]-232) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The charismatic form of healing called qigong, based on meditative breathing exercises, has achieved enormous popularity in China during the last two decades. Qigong served a critical social organizational function, as practitioners formed new informal networks, sometimes on an international scale, at a time when China was shifting from state-subsidized medical care to for-profit market medicine. The emergence of new psychological states deemed to be deviant led the Chinese state to "medicalize" certain forms while championing scientific versions of qigong. By contrast, qigong continues to be promoted outside China as a traditional healing practice. Breathing Spaces brings to life the narratives of numerous practitioners, healers, psychiatric patients, doctors, and bureaucrats, revealing the varied and often dramatic ways they cope with market reform and social changes in China.
Table of Contents
Preface 1. Introduction 2. Fever 3. Riding the Tiger 4. Qigong Deviation or Psychosis 5. Chinese Psychiatry and the Search for Order 6. Mandate of Science 7. Transnational Qigong 8. Suffering and Healing Glossary
by "Nielsen BookData"