Xudong Zhao, Dr.Med.
Xudong Zhao, Dr.Med., is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at Tongji University in Shanghai, Director of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine at Shanghai East Hospital, and Director of the Institute of Philosophical Psychology, School of Humanities at Tongji University. He is also a Guest-Professor at Ritsumeikan University in Japan and at the Mental Health Institute of Beijing University. Dr. Zhao received his bachelor and master degrees of medicine from Kunming Medical College and West China University of Medicine and his Dr.Med. degree from Heidelberg University in Germany. He has worked in the fields of neurology, psychiatry and psychotherapy since 1983, with an academic and research focus on cross-cultural psychiatry, psychotherapy, family therapy and psychosomatic medicine. Dr. Zhao has made significant contributions to the development of psychotherapy and clinical psychosomatic medicine in China. He and his colleagues were responsible for the opening of China’s first open psychiatric ward in the 1980s and first psychotherapy center in the 1990s. He was a key player in the promotion of the People’s Republic of China’s first Mental Health Law. Since 1997, he has served as a leader in the “Chinese-German Advanced Continuous Training Program for Psychotherapy,” recognized with the International Sigmund Freud Award for Psychotherapy 2008 in Vienna for its crucial role in introducing Western psychotherapy into China.