Mental Health

The Mental Health Department of Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine combines traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with modern psychiatry. It diagnoses and treats depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, insomnia, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and emotional disorders in children and adolescents. Its approach combines Chinese and Western medicine and care for mind and body, using individualized TCM based on pattern differentiation alongside psychotherapy, physical therapies and rehabilitation.

TCM services include herbal decoctions, acupuncture and ear-acupoint seed pressing, with classical formulas such as Anshen Dingzhi Fang and Shugan Jieyu Fang adjusted for conditions such as insomnia and anxiety. Modern psychiatry includes cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and equipment for repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation. For treatment-resistant mental illness such as resistant depression, the hospital describes a combined approach using Western medicines for symptoms and Chinese medicine for constitutional support, with the stated aim of reducing side effects and improving effectiveness.

Special services include emotional regulation and wellness guidance for people described as being in suboptimal health, aimed at preventing mental illness; and multidisciplinary collaboration with TCM internal medicine, neurology, gastroenterology, cardiology and acupuncture for psychosomatic disease and sleep disorders.

The department is a Zhejiang master's training base in psychiatry and mental health. It has held the national continuing medical education Xianghu Sleep Medicine Summit Forum for five consecutive years, averaging more than 200 participants and over 10,000 online views and supporters annually. The department director and academic director are members of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association psychiatry branch anxiety and depression committee, the Chinese Medical Association psychiatry branch women’s group and the Zhejiang Medical Association psychiatry branch; standing members of the Zhejiang Preventive Medicine Association mental health committee and the geriatric mental disorders branch; and deputy chair of the Zhejiang Rehabilitation Medicine Association clinical psychotherapy committee.

In the past five years, the department has undertaken or participated in three National Natural Science Foundation youth projects, led one Zhejiang Natural Science Foundation project and more than ten departmental or bureau-level projects, and published dozens of SCI-indexed papers.