Working with Chinese patients: are there conflicts between Chinese culture and psychoanalysis? *

Despite differences between Chinese culture and Western culture (Sun, 2002, 2004), modern Chinese are gradually accepting psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy as options for dealing with psychological problems and inner conflicts (Gerlach, 1999). Through my own experience of being analysed and vignettes from my clinical practice as a Chinese analytic psychotherapist, I argue first, that although there are conflicts at philosophic and cultural levels between Chinese culture and psychoanalysis, modern Chinese may have varying experience in psychoanalytic and psychodynamic situations and second, such cultural conflicts can not be ignored or only regarded as defences in the psychoanalytic situation in China.