How to find Talk Therapy? (In Mandarin)

My wife has been depressed since having our child (now 19 months old) who was a difficult baby and is now turning out to be a difficult toddler with a very strong will. She is currently a stay at home mom, and we are living with her parents (I work full-time online US hours, and she wanted to be near her mother).

I’ve tried suggesting several things to help, such as seeing a psychologist, getting a nanny, daycare, getting a part time job (to get out of the house, we don’t need the money), etc but they all get turned down.

From what I’ve been reading online, something that may help is if I were to schedule the appointment for her, and then go with her to the clinic. She’s seen a psychiatrist in Taiwan before which was pretty much just a sit down for 2-3 minutes and they write you a prescription, where I think a western “talk therapy” session may be helpful (hell, I think a couples counseling talk therapy session would also be helpful).

Is this available in Taiwan?

Thanks for any help!

There’s the Center in Tianmu. Definitely worth checking out: Counseling -.

I’ve called around to other therapy places (there’s one near Taipei Main, I don’t remember the name of it. It was all in Chinese) and they all told me to talk to the Center to ask for help finding something, though not necessarily from the Center itself. Be aware the cost of talk therapy is around what you’ll pay in the West. Some “teachers” (they use “老師” to refer to therapists here) charge NT1500/hr, but most are more in the NT2000-4000+ range, paid in cash. I think the Center does do things on more of a sliding scale though.

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Psychotherapy (and clinical psychology generally) is a bit hit-and-miss in taiwan. You pay a lot of money and don’t get much back.

If there’s no possibility of ructions and arguments, you might be better off spending the money on childcare help - just getting someone in for a few hours a day to clean up, entertain the kid, and maybe just sit and gossip. There’s clearly a real, underlying reason for your wife’s mood, and if you address that, it’ll probably help more than talking about it.

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