The Mind in Crisis: The politicisation of the mind in China 1949-2013

改革开放以来，中国的自杀率抛出了两组令人费解的数据。首先，根据2002年发表在《柳叶刀》上的一项研究，从1995年到1999年，农村自杀率是城市自杀率的3-5倍，女性自杀人数高于男性(飞利浦2002)。第二个令人费解的统计数据是，在《柳叶刀》报告发表后的几年里，中国的总体自杀率大幅下降，从2010年的每10万人中有37.8人下降到略高于每10万人中有3人(经济学人，2014年)。我认为，通过考察中国对自杀和心理健康的更广泛的论述，可以为这种转变提供更广泛的背景，并扩大我们对中国内部自杀和心理健康的理解，使我们超越吴非所见的家庭领域，并更清楚地理解社会在自杀和心理健康中的作用，如涂尔干或福柯所说，但在现代中国语境中。因此，它可能会对自杀学以及我们对社会力量和话语如何作用于政治参与者的理解产生更广泛的影响。

Since reform and opening China's suicide rate has thrown up two puzzling sets of statistics. The first is that, according to a study published in the Lancet in 2002, from 1995-1999 rural suicides were 3-5 times more prevalent than urban suicides, and females killed themselves more than men (Philips 2002). The second puzzling statistic is that in the years following the Lancet report the overall suicide rate in China plummeted, from 37.8 per 100,000 in 2010 to just over 3 per 100,000 (Economist 2014). I propose that by looking at the wider discourse of suicide and mental health in China it can serve to provide a wider context for this shift, and to expand our understanding of suicide and mental health within China beyond the realm of the family, as seen by Wu Fei, and to create a clearer understanding of the role of society in suicide and mental health, as per Durkheim or Foucault, but in a modern Chinese context. As such, it may have implications wider for suicidology and for our understandings of how social forces and discourses work on political actors.