ENGLISH

Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China

Book information

Year
2003
ISBN
0231128045, 9780231128049, 9780231502214
LCC
RA781.8 .B73 2003
Open Library ID
OL22493882M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
3 MB (3395100 bytes)
Edition
1St Edition
Pages
272\257
Orientation
yes
Scanned
no
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

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.

Similar books