ABSTRACT
"Exporting" psychoanalysis to China is a controversial undertaking: some think it is impossible, considering cultural differences; others believe that it is possible and promising. In his book, China on the Mind, Christopher Bollas argues for a fruitful meeting of psychoanalysis and Chinese thought. Psychoanalysis has clearly favoured the study of the development of the individual becoming the subject. In the regression produced by the group dynamics, the conflict becomes radicalised and reactivates primitive schizo-paranoid dynamics. The third part of China on the Mind—"Conceptualisations"—deals with the topic of group dynamics and individual psychology. Psychoanalysis, born of the Freudian paternal order, later extended by Winnicott, Kahn, Bion, and others to encompass the maternal order, would, according to Bollas, be capable of achieving a synthesis and building a bridge between western and Chinese cultures.
