Mental Disorders Department

[Overview] The Psychological Sleep Specialty of Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine was established in 2005 and is the earliest psychological sleep specialty established within the traditional Chinese medicine system in China. It is a Key Specialty and Key Discipline for mental illness (Shenzhi Bing) of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the affiliated institution of the Sleep Psychology Professional Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Association of Integrative Chinese and Western Medicine. The department focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders, anxiety disorders, depressive episodes, panic disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, adolescent emotional and behavioral disorders, and various neuroses. Three dominant disease categories have now been established: Bumei (insomnia), Yuzheng (depression syndrome) and Jingji (palpitations). The department has led and participated in the formulation of a number of guidelines and clinical pathways for insomnia, depressive episodes and panic attacks. At present the department has a total of 13 medical and nursing staff, including 10 physicians and 2 full-time therapists. The department has 1 staff member at full senior professional rank, 1 at associate senior rank and 4 at intermediate rank. There is 1 doctoral supervisor. [Department Features] 1. Under the guidance of the hospital's principle of "TCM standards at the frontier, modern medicine keeping pace", the department gives full play to the advantages of traditional Chinese medicine, relying mainly on Chinese herbal medicine and combining it with modern medical therapies, as well as traditional Chinese therapies such as acupuncture, auricular point bean-pressing, and Chinese herbal foot bathing, to treat sleep disorders and various mental and psychological illnesses. 2. The department attaches importance to the role of psychotherapy in sleep disorders and mental and psychological illnesses. It provides individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, sleep cognitive behavioral therapy, breathing regulation therapy, meridian hypnotherapy, sandplay therapy, mindfulness therapy, marital therapy, interpersonal therapy, parent group therapy and others; the conditions covered include various sleep disorders, depressive episodes, various neuroses, interpersonal difficulties, adolescent emotional and behavioral disorders, abnormal marital and family relationships, abnormal parent-child relationships, and difficulties in occupational adjustment, among various other psychological disorders. 3. The department actively carries out a variety of modern therapies to meet different individual needs, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, electronic biofeedback, Ziwu Liuzhu (midnight-noon ebb-flow) therapy, and Taichangshou electronic pulse therapy.