一九二○、三○年代，隨著中國系統性地接受西方社會科學，精神分析以重要現代心理學流派的形貌出現。在此同時，中國知識份子因清末民初以來中西衝突等社會巨變，持續產生適應問題及自我邊緣化的傾向。在當地知識菁英逐漸以科學認識自我、並藉此打造新國民的脈絡下，一九三○年代後半期在北平協和醫院任職的社會心理學家戴秉衡借用主要來自美國的社會科學研究方法，對院內若干病患進行精神分析，企圖理解中國人的人格結構，以及家庭、政治困境下的病理表現。在這些知識關切與社會關切之下，戴提出一套將當下中國人社會實情納入考量的人格與社會互動模式，並以此修正佛洛伊德等人的理論。 藉由將戴秉衡的生涯與學術傳承放回歷史脈絡，本文企圖釐清其科學理論與社會之間的關係。此外，戴所操作的精神分析也進一步成為分析科學理論與實作之文化特性的極佳案例。

Bingham Dai (1899-1996) has been considered the first lay psychoanalyst in China. His psychoanalytic practice at the Division of Neuropsychiatry at Peking Union Meidcal College from 1936 to 1939 has recently drawn much attention. Commentators tend to associate Dai's psychoanalytic practice with the work of his superisor, Harry Stack Sullivan. The context of Dai's introduction of psychoanalysis into China and the cultural implications of his career are yet to be analyzed. Dai's work was part of the famous project on “The Survey of Race Relations” conducted in the early twentieth-century on the American West coast. Sociologists such as Robert Park and the Chinese- and Japanese American scholars and informants they recruited launched a series of extensive studies on the subjects of racial relationships, the encounters between cultures, and migrations and assimilation. Sullivan's interpersonal psychiatry as well as the discourse which the American sociologists utilized to construct the Orientals and other minority groups remained essential to Dai's later career. As the Western social sciences began to be systematically introduced into China during the 1920s and 1930s, psychoanalysis was perceived by some contemporary Chinese scholars as a major school of modern psychology. In the meantime, in the face of profound social and political changes, educated Chinese experienced difficulty in adapting to stressful circumstances and developed a tendency of self-marginalization. Western psychology and psychiatry provided both bodies of scientific knowledge to probe into the newly modernized self and technologies of constructing new citizenship. At Peking Union Meidcal College, Dai intensively conducted several cases designed to clarify the Chinese personality structure and the patient's pathological reactions to familial, political, and other social difficulties. In so doing, Dai modified theories put forth by the leading psychoanalysts of the day. The influence of Sullivan and Park is also shown in Dai's mid-century studies on the Personality development of “Negro” children and other minority groups. The present study aims to understand the first Chinese lay analyst's life work in its historical and intellectual context. Dai's career is also an excellent test case for analyzing the transmission of psychoanalytic knowledge and practice.