Feed

Mental health among medical trainees has typically been framed as an individual deficit, addressed through resilience training and counseling services. This perspective examines how the hidden curriculum within Chinese psychiatry training may shape psychological safety and professional identity formation. Drawing on psychological safety theory, hidden curriculum scholarship, Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, and recent empirical literature on medical trainee distress in China, we propose a theoretically derived and empirically testable conceptual model through which experiences of vulnerability may become socially and professionally invisible. The proposed vulnerability-to-invisibility process describes four interconnected phases: the encounter with vulnerability, perceived or enacted prohibition of emotional expression, internalization of silence, and potential fragmentation of professional identity. Existing evidence supports several constituent components of this pathway, but direct empirical evidence establishing the complete sequence remains limited. We therefore call for institutional reforms that embed psychological safety into clinical training, including protected reflective spaces, reflective faculty modeling, peer support, and curriculum-integrated mentorship, while emphasizing adaptive emotional regulation rather than forced suppression.