Family Therapy in China

Therapy in China
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Structural Family Therapy and Divorce in China
1 Introduction
Family therapists opine that individuals are entities closely embedded in a relationship network, rather than existing as separate units (Stanton & Welsh, 2012). This perception acknowledges the mutual effects family members can have on others (Tse, Ng, Tonsing & Ran, 2012). In Chinese culture, each family member plays a unique role in the society. The elderly people are highly esteemed while the youth are the central focus of the family. Chinese societies are largely hierarchical and the males take up patriarchal roles. While males are breadwinners and heads of households, females become homemakers. With such a hierarchical structure in place, gender equality is highly repressed in Chinese culture. The One-Child policy has been blamed as a leading contributor to gender inequality that has resulted in male dominance in Chinese societies (Hesketh, Lu & Xing, 2005). In the workplace, a similar trend is reflected where women are paid less than their male counterparts. Such a climate has given way to an increase in a number of social problems such as divorce. Today, Chinese view marriage as a freedom of choice. Progressivism introduced stringent measures to protect the rights of divorced women. However, these laws have since then seemed to encourage divorce by supporting cultures such as flash marriages and flash divorce where marriages barely last 7 months (People's Daily Online, 2013). The divorced women undergo mental torture, in addition to a plethora of challenges they face during post-divorce period (Miller & Fang, 2012). This paper argues that in addition to progressivism laws, there is a need for the provision of a special form of psychotherapy, known as family therapy to families to prevent the rampant cases of divorce or support families following divorce. To achieve its objective, this paper explores the problem of divorce among the cultural societies in China and examines the effectiveness of family therapy as a form of psychotherapy aimed at resolving conflict and buttress communicant in families.
2 Family Therapy
In China, family therapy was introduced by visiting German therapists in early 1980s (Epstein, Young, Zheng & Kim, 2015). The German therapists conducted short-term training sessions on systemic model. Structural family therapy, was proposed by Salvador Minuchin and a team of other psychotherapists in 1960s (Vetere, 2001). It was not until 2000 that Minuchin, including other structural family therapists such as Pauline Sung and Joyce Ma conducted training on the same in the University of Hong Kong (Epstein, Young, Zheng & Kim, 2015). Since 2000, a number of models ranging from solution-focussed to cognitive behavioural models have been introduced. Some of the Western models of family therapy focus on interventions that are both appealing in the Chinese culture and encourage interconnections among family members. However, the issues of gender roles and hierarchical structures in Chinese culture are yet to be addressed while applying the Western models. There is a considerable growth in academic programs focusing on family therapy in Chi...