Christian testimonies and demands for care. Practical evidence of negotiation and diagnostic resistance of Chinese refugee people

Abstract

 In recent years, numerous Chinese nationals have applied for international protection on religious grounds in some Italian cities.  At the National Institute for Migration and Poverty (NIHMP), a public agency of the Italian National Health Service, many of them requested medical and psychological treatment and a clinical certification that could document the traces of the violence they suffered in China because they were Christians at the Territorial Commission, or at the Judge in case of an appeal. A team from the Roman outpatient clinic consisting of an anthropologist, a psychiatrist, psychologists and Chinese-Mandarin linguistic-cultural mediators treated them for about two years, based on a request for psychological support and a certificate, abruptly terminated, which produced the “disease of depression.”  A condition, the latter, which turned out to be in deep antithesis with their profession of faith.