Spirit mediumship in rural China is often treated as backward compared to urban psychotherapy, but this essay argues that such a view is shaped by national anti-superstition campaigns and psychiatric discourses that render rural practices anachronistic. Drawing on ethnographic work in Henan province, the author describes a spirit medium in a psychiatric unit whose diagnosis reflects social evolutionary and developmentalist ideas of time. The medium's own rituals and cosmology invert these spatio-temporal assumptions, performing what the author calls chronotopic labor. The essay connects the dislocation of rural mediumship with urban psychotherapeutic and diasporic experiences, considering alternative futures.
A historical account traces the development of 'contemplative psychotherapy' in the United States, centered on psychoanalyst Edward Podvoll and the intellectual milieu at Naropa University in the 1970s and 1980s. The paper situates Podvoll's work within the broader dialogue between Buddhism and Western psychotherapy, highlighting how his contributions illuminate this complex encounter. It outlines Podvoll's psychiatric background, the establishment of contemplative psychotherapy at Naropa, and the creation of the Windhorse community therapy model, contextualizing his dialogues with figures such as Chögyam Trungpa, Erik Erikson, Manfred Bleuler, and Oliver Sacks.