Folk Art and Mental Health: The Shaping of Urban Citizen Psychological Stress and Well-Being through Narrative Performance
Huizhi Gao, Dejun JiAbstract
Objective
This study investigates how folk narrative performance shaped urban citizen mental health and psychological stress. It examines how narrative art functioned as a coping mechanism for anxiety, depressive symptoms, and emotional distress from status pressure and survival burdens. The objective is a psychiatric framework for understanding how narrative engagement regulates negative affect, reduces stress, and promotes well-being through vicarious experience.
Subjects and Methods
The study employs social-psychological analysis of folk narrative dissemination. Psychiatric frameworks guide investigation: (1) stress-coping models examining narrative as emotional release and cognitive reappraisal; (2) attachment theory understanding collective narrative as secure emotional bonds reducing anxiety; (3) emotion regulation theory analyzing vicarious satisfaction and emotional projection for processing depressive symptoms.
Results
Folk narrative addressed psychological needs—status pressure, survival burden, emotional repression—through emotional release, cognitive construction, and group identity. Psychiatric analysis reveals therapeutic parallels: vicarious satisfaction provides safe expression for anxiety and grief; emotional projection counters depressive rumination; collective empathy reduces isolation and enhances belonging. Narrative engagement reshaped cognitive schemata and emotional structures, reducing psychological distress and promoting adaptive regulation.
Conclusions
Folk narrative functioned as culturally-embedded psychological intervention—addressing anxiety, depressive symptoms, and emotional distress through vicarious experience and collective emotional processing. This immersive regulation pathway informs contemporary narrative therapy for mood and anxiety disorders. Culturally resonant narrative practices can reduce negative affect and enhance well-being. Future research should examine therapeutic efficacy of culturally-adapted narrative protocols for stress-related mental disorders.
Corresponding Author
Huizhi Gao, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510006, China.