A creative approach to mental illness

Art therapy uses the creative process of making art to improve a person's physical, mental and emotional well-being.

Art therapy appeared in developed countries in the 1940s and became widely recognized in the early 1960s.

In 1994, the earliest article introducing art therapy to the mainland was written by Gong Shu and appeared in the Clinical Mental Health magazine. Over the past few years, art therapy has been introduced as a pilot project to some mental hospitals.

In 2004, the Ministry of Health launched its "686" project, subsidized by the central government to support community-based mental care centers.

From 2004-2010, 220 million yuan ($35 million) was allocated from the central budget to the program that has so far covered at least 80 districts and counties in 161 cities, serving a population of 330 million.

Under the project, there are 277,000 registered psychiatric patients, 200,000 of which are high-risk. Free medication is distributed to 94,000 needy patients, and free hospitalization is provided for 12,400 people, Ministry of Health statistics show.

"It is a worldwide trend to launch mental health reform programs," says Guo Haiping, an expert in art therapy who ran the nation's first psychological hotline in 1989 in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

He believes China's mental health system should move away from a custodial-care asylum mode into a modern teaching hospital system, focusing on psychiatric treatment, rehabilitation, art therapy and research.

Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention figures from 2009 show at least 100 million Chinese have mental disorders. At least 56 million mentally ill people across the country are unable to get access to proper treatment.