Research
I am a psychoanalyst in training, and clinical work is the ground from which everything else grows. My research asks how psychoanalytic literacy develops outside institutional training — through writing, teaching, music, games, and technology. I work at the intersection of psychoanalysis, education, Chinese culture, gender, Buddhism, and creative practice. Everything I do is, in one way or another, an attempt to understand how subjects form, resist, and create themselves through processes of translation.
Three Foundational Programmes
Three research programmes form the foundation of my work. They address the same question — how psychoanalytic understanding grows — from three different angles.
Psychoanalytic Literacy
How people learn to think psychoanalytically — through reading, creating, and being held.
Buddhism ×
Psychoanalysis
What two independent systems of mind classification see — and don't see — about each other.
Gentle Structure Lab
How technology, design, and AI can support working through without controlling it.
Psychoanalytic Literacy
How It Grows Outside the Clinic
The psychoanalytic field has rarely separated "literacy" from "training." Understanding is bound to credentialing, education to qualification — a binding that deserves examination. My research programme names psychoanalytic literacy as an independent concept and investigates how it develops through multiple forms of practice.
The research site is 何苦开心 (hékǔkāixīn), a cultural-educational brand I founded in 2020. Over six years, it has grown into a multi-media ecology with 20,000+ readers: 300+ articles, courses with 260+ subscribers, fiction, games, and AI-generated music and visual art — all exploring how psychoanalytic understanding travels through different channels.
Method
Each piece of content — an article, a song, a game — is a designed experience within an iterative research cycle. I study both how audiences develop literacy (reception) and how creative practice itself becomes working-through (production).
Findings So Far
Seven dimensions of psychoanalytic literacy identified, plus "loosening" as an underlying process across all dimensions. Independent analytic thinking is not a single capacity but a cluster of at least seven cognitive operations. Paid and public spaces cultivate different kinds (not degrees) of literacy.
Current outputs: course paper (June 2026) → ROOM Magazine → McCary Fund grant proposal (August 2026)
→ Project hub with methodology, findings, and stage tracker
Buddhism × Psychoanalysis
Systematic Comparative Conceptual Analysis
A systematic comparison between the 51 mental factors (心所法) of the Yogācāra Treatise on the Hundred Dharmas and psychoanalytic affect theory. Not "Buddhism and psychoanalysis are similar," but: what does each system see that the other doesn't?
Method
For each mental factor: Buddhist definition, nearest psychoanalytic concept, points of correspondence, points of tension, blind spots, and experiential verification from dual practice (meditation + clinical work).
Pilot Finding: Greed (貪)
Greed and libido describe the same phenomenon (adhesive movement toward an object) but at different ontological levels: greed targets existence itself; libido targets specific relational objects. Their epistemological positions are fundamentally opposed — greed is suffering; libido is vitality.
Phase 1: six root afflictions (貪嗔痴慢疑不正見) · First paper: "Clearing the Ground" → Contemporary Buddhism
→ Project hub with full progress tracker
Gentle Structure Lab
Technology, Design, and AI for Psychoanalytic Practice
Gentle structure — structure that holds without controlling — is the unifying design principle across 何苦开心's products. This programme investigates how technology, software design, and AI agents can support the process of working through at scale. It sits at the intersection of psychoanalytic thinking and tool-building: not "how do we digitise therapy," but how do we design systems whose structure is itself therapeutic?
This is the most emergent of the three foundational programmes — the principle is clear, the product directions are taking shape.
Products in development: Palimpsest (AI-assisted writing tool), 博雅精神分析 course system (260+ subscribers, launched February 2026), Enough Today (daily containment prototype).
→ Project hub with design principles, product experiments, and stage tracker
Chinese Subjectivity
Psychoanalytic Approaches to Chinese Experience
A sustained programme investigating Chinese subjectivity through psychoanalytic theory — from the formation of the unconscious in specific cultural-historical conditions to the contemporary psychoanalytic scene in China. This line includes my doctoral dissertation, ongoing publication work, and the Chinese Psychoanalytic Scene (CPS) Substack.
The Drifting Subject (Dissertation)
Using Laplanche's general theory of seduction to investigate Chinese subjectivity. Six layers of "growth rings" — tradition, colonial modernity, revolutionary trauma, family, capitalism, state — each depositing enigmatic messages that the subject must translate. The argument centres on refusal to translate as a mode of subject formation: defensive refusal ("not this"), creative refusal (finding one's own codes), and the mourning required to move between them.
Shidafu and Narcissistic Structure
Reading the shidafu (士大夫) position as a narcissistic regulation structure maintained through three selfobject functions (idealising, mirroring, twinship), and analysing modernisation as the collapse of these structural conditions rather than an intellectual transformation. In dialogue with 余英時, Metzger (1977), Levenson, De Bary.
Published work in this line: narcissistic vulnerability in Chinese masculinity, the relational and social unconscious in clinical cases, social media and mental health discourse in China, and mother archetypes in Chinese cultural narratives.
→ Track page with full publication list and cross-line connections
Gender, Queerness, and Trans Experience
A sustained line of work examining transgender experience, queer subjectivity, and gender as enigmatic message — primarily through Laplanche, Ferenczi, and Saketopoulou. Published work includes transgender selfhood in the Chinese context, creative mourning through music, and the structural condition of transgender non-existence ("existence tax"). This line runs through both academic writing and creative practice.
Key Publications
"Becoming Myself: Transgender Authentic Selfhood in the Chinese Context" (Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 2026) · "From Silence to Song: True Self-Emergence Through Creative Mourning" (Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2025) · "Ghostly Persistence: Disavowal, Remainder, and the Indigestible Queer Subject in China" (J. of LGBTQ+ Mental Health, forthcoming, Outstanding Trainee Paper Award)
→ Track page with full publication list, awards, and cross-line connections
Clinical
Papers from Psychoanalytic Practice
Clinical papers emerging from psychoanalytic practice. These draw on case material and clinical process to develop theoretical arguments — overlapping with other research lines but grounded specifically in the encounter between analyst and patient.
Key Publications
"Deprivation and Disruption: Toxic Masculinity" (Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, 2025, Erika First Prize) · "Gaming the Unconscious" (Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in China, 2025) · "Self-Hollowing: Ghosts Within Ourselves" (Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, forthcoming)
In progress: "Existence Tax" (APSA Roughton 2026) · "The Defensive Production of Certainty" (APSA Award, June 2026)
→ Track page with full publication list and cross-line connections
Creative Practice
Creative work runs across all research lines. Making things — fiction, music, visual art, games — is not illustration of theory but a form of working through in its own right.
QPHU
A novel series deeply entangled with psychoanalytic thinking. Book 1 publishing; Book 2 drafted.
精神分析百鬼図
Psychoanalytic ghost stories through AI-generated imagery. Three visual zines on themes of trauma, the zombie mother, and the transgender body.
Enough
An album on transgender experience and creative mourning. Companion to the published paper "From Silence to Song."
Emotional Device 404
A psychoanalytic album exploring schizoid experience and trauma through sound.
Games
Experimental games exploring dissociation, trauma, and psychoanalytic concepts through interactive experience.
Buddhist Trilogy
《我佛》《師子》《法身》— Three volumes on Buddhist practice, identity, and embodiment.
Practice Timeline
Psychodynamic training + clinical practice begins
Started personal analysis and psychodynamic training. Began clinical practice.
何苦开心 founded
WeChat public account launched during COVID. Psychoanalytic writing for general audiences. Now 300+ original articles, 20,000+ readers.
Podcast《清醒梦》
30+ episodes exploring psychoanalytic thinking in everyday life. Paused after one year.
精神分析百鬼図 begins
AI-generated visual art series combining psychoanalysis, trauma, and ghost imagery. Continued through 2025; exhibited and published as three zines.
Psychoanalytic training begins
Entered psychoanalytic training programme.
Trauma-informed paid column
Structured psychoanalytic education through a paid subscription column. Precursor to 博雅精神分析.
Music albums · QPHU · Academic publications
Two AI music albums (Enough, Emotional Device 404), the QPHU novel series began. Six peer-reviewed papers published across psychoanalysis, gender, and Chinese studies. Four academic awards.
博雅精神分析 launched · Research programmes formalised
博雅精神分析 subscription course launched (February; 260+ paid members). Game development begins. Buddhism × Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Literacy established as formal research programmes.
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Publications
- published Qiao, X. (2026). Becoming Myself: Transgender Authentic Selfhood in the Chinese Context and Transgender Self-Experience. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 47(5). DOI
- published Qiao, X. (2025). From Silence to Song: True Self-Emergence Through Creative Mourning. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 26(4), 318–330. DOI
- published Qiao, X. (2025). Deprivation and disruption: The development of narcissistic vulnerability and toxic masculinity in some Chinese contexts. Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, 20(2), 237–253. DOI
- published Qiao, X. (2025). Gaming the unconscious: The relational and social unconscious in a contemporary Chinese case study. Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in China, 8(1–2), 14–24. DOI
- published Qiao, X. (2025). The role of social media in shaping mental health discourse: A case study of China's psychoanalysis and counselling narratives. Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in China, 8(1–2), 115–125. DOI
- published Qiao, X. (2024). Mother archetypes in Chinese cultural narratives: A psychoanalytic perspective. Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in China, 7(1–2), 139–153. DOI
Accepted / Forthcoming
- accepted Qiao, X. (forthcoming). Ghostly Persistence: Disavowal, Remainder, and the Indigestible Queer Subject in China. Journal of LGBTQ+ Mental Health.
- accepted Qiao, X. (forthcoming). Self-Hollowing: Ghosts Within Ourselves. Psychoanalysis, Self and Context.
- accepted Qiao, X. (forthcoming). Oedipal Variations in Chinese Luoshan Motif. Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in China.
Invited / Commissioned
- invited Qiao, X. (invited). Confusion of Tongues in the Chinese Context. Psychoanalytic Inquiry (journal commission).
- invited Qiao, X. (invited). Chapter in Radicalising Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Theories and Tools for Resistance (edited volume).
- invited Qiao, X. (invited). Article for special issue "Psychoanalysis, Politics, and Public Humanities." Humanities.
Awards
- award 2026 Outstanding Trainee Paper Award, Journal of LGBTQ+ Mental Health
- award 2025 Ralph Roughton Paper Award (Runner-up), APsaA Committee on Gender & Sexuality
- award 2025 Gender, Sexuality, LGBTQ+ Essay Award, ICPLA
- award 2024 Erika Schmidt Essay Prize (First Prize), Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute
Professional Publications
- professional Qiao, X. (2026). What School Are You? The American Psychoanalyst.
- professional Qiao, X. (2026). Between Worlds: A Chinese Analyst's Journey. Room: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action.
- professional Qiao, X. (2026). The Inner Negotiator: AI as Transitional Object and Echo in the Treatment of Complex Trauma. APsaA Committee on AI Report.
- professional Qiao, X. (2025). Between Two Names. The American Psychoanalyst.
- professional Qiao, X. (2025). The Shadow of the Dead Mother. The American Psychoanalyst.
- professional Qiao, X. (2025). The Seen and the Unseen: AI's Disquieting Impact. Room: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action.
- professional Qiao, X. (2025). AI Assisted Creation and Narcissistic Predicament. APsaA Committee on AI Report.
Book Translation
- forthcoming Qiao, X. (2027). Dear Candidate: Analysts from around the World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession [Chinese translation]. Wanqian Xinli Press.
About
Xiaomeng Qiao is a psychoanalyst in training and doctoral student (PsyaD in Psychoanalysis, Society and Culture) at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, currently based in the United Kingdom. He is a candidate of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), and serves on the APsaA President's Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the Committee on Gender and Sexuality.
Clinical work is the foundation of all his research and creative output. His doctoral research uses Laplanche's translation theory to investigate Chinese subjectivity, examining how cultural, colonial, and political formations shape unconscious life. He is the founder of 何苦开心 (hékǔkāixīn), a cultural-educational brand bringing psychoanalytic thinking to Chinese-speaking audiences through writing, courses, music, visual art, and games.
He writes Chinese Psychoanalytic Scene on Substack and develops creative projects — fiction, experimental games, and AI-generated music and visual art — as forms of psychoanalytic practice and working through.
Contact: xiaomeng.qiao.ayame9joe@gmail.com · ORCID: 0009-0003-2301-7446