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From Means to Goal: A History of Mental Health in Hong Kong from 1850 to 1960

2021; Springer Nature; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-030-65161-9_6

2197-7984

Harry Yi‐Jui Wu,

Mental Health Treatment and Access

The British ruled Hong Kong as a colony from 1842, when China ceded Hong Kong Island after the First Opium War. The colonial territory was expanded to include the Kowloon Peninsula and, in a further treaty in 1989, Britain leased the New Territories for 99 years. Its developmental trajectory was therefore very different to that of mainland China. This chapter examines the history of development of thinking about and responding to mental illness and the establishment of mental health services, between 1850 and 1960. In the early years, responses to mental disorder were based on the needs of the port city, a growing commercial center, and a matter for exercise of colonial authority, rather than concern for the needs of people with mental illness. Persons with mental illness were seen as disturbing the efficient operation of the port city, with police and the magistrates playing a key role in the disposition of the “insane.” In the 1920s and 1930s, psychiatric and psychological sciences were actively introduced into Hong Kong. After World War II began, there was active modernization of the mental health system, with a focus on the well-being of persons with mental illness. Many of the leading psychiatrists studied in the UK. Psychiatric and psychological professional bodies proliferated, psychiatry was included in the medical curriculum, new treatments were introduced, hospital facilities improved, and a phase of collaboration among psychiatric/psychological professionals, social workers, and welfare policymakers established the foundations for today’s comprehensive mental health system.