Main description:

Marriage and Family in Modern China is a groundbreaking psychoanalytic examination of how 70 years of widespread social change have transformed the intimacies of life in modern China.

The book describes the evolution of marriage and family structure, from the ancient tradition of large families preferring sons, arranged marriages and devaluation of girls, to a contemporary dominance of free-choice marriages and families that now prefer to remain small even after the ending of the One Child Policy. David Scharff uses extensive reports of his psychoanalytic interventions to demonstrate how the residue of widespread trauma suffered by Chinese families during past centuries has interacted with the effects of rapid modernization to produce new patterns of individual identity, personal ambition and family structure.

This wholly original book offers new insight into Chinese families for all those interested in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and in the intricacies of Chinese domestic life.

Contents:

PART 1 Marriage and Family in the Context of Contemporary China 1 Introduction 2 A Chinese Marriage: History, Discontinuity and Trauma 3 An Introduction to Psychoanalytic Understanding of Families and Couples 4 The Hidden Chinese Revolution 5 Changing Values in Contemporary China 6 Trauma, Resilience and the Family PART 2 Marriage in China Today 7 Marriage in China: Strengths and Vulnerabilities 8 The Lingering Legacy of Parental Influence 9 Sex and Sexuality in China 10 Extramarital Affairs, Sexual and Emotional 11 Beginning Treatment of a Couple Who Presented with an Extramarital Affair 12 Divorce PART 3 The Changing Face of Families 13 The Young and Changing Family 14 Families of Young Adolescents 15 Older Adolescents, Youth and Two-Child Families 16 A Couple Therapy 17 China in Light of COVID-19 18 A Return to Our Questions