Exploring Mental Health Social Work through an Anthropological Lens

Original audio is in Chinese

Hosted and Produced by Lianchao LAN

This episode features Xiaoka, a mental health social worker who has been curating an annual art exhibition on mental health for five years. Each year, more artists join the initiative, bringing new forms of creative expression into the conversation around mental health.

With a background in social work and training in medical anthropology during graduate school, Xiaoka has long combined academic research with field practice. Her work on depression began as a student project and has since evolved into what she describes as a lifelong field study.

Through direct engagement with patients and intervention practices, she has gained rich insights into lived experiences of depression. Yet, she continues to explore how these individual stories can be connected to broader interdisciplinary dialogues.

In our conversation, Xiaoka points out a key challenge: while patients may receive support from hospitals or families, workplaces and schools often remain absent from the support network. This gap highlights why cross-disciplinary dialogue is so essential—balancing the dominance of professional discourses and mobilizing diverse social resources to create more holistic forms of care.

This episode invites listeners to think about mental health not only as a medical or personal issue, but also as a social and cultural challenge. Xiaoka’s observations offer both critical reflection and hope: building networks of support requires collaboration across disciplines, institutions, and communities.