In China, where censorship is the status quo and radio broadcasts are usually canned or tightly scripted, Wei-Jen Huang is given free reign on the airwaves.

In 2002 Huang made one of his many trips to Beijing to deliver a seminar on marriage to China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs. While visiting, the Northwestern clinical psychologist was asked to give an address on the People’s Radio.

After loading into a large black sedan that drove him past the station’s armed guard, he was given two hours to speak live and unscripted about the topic he knows best: love.

He has won the trust of China’s government, he says, with a simple message that they adore. Love, he says, needs to be learned.

“You can talk about that in a Muslim country, talk about that in communist country,” he said.

At NU the Feinberg School of Medicine faculty member who works at Counseling and Psychological Services is known as “The Love Doctor.” And across Asia, he is a premiere speaker on the intricate workings of love and relationships.

In Singapore, a nation in the midst of a fertility crisis, the government consulted him before launching a campaign to promote intimacy. In Malaysia this March, he helped train a group of 250 marriage counselors who will run a premarital education program for 10,000 of the country’s young couples.

He has been honored at the White House and spoken at the United Nation’s 2004 International Family Conference.

His method, he says, is a take on western psychology made palatable for eastern nations, where people still attach a stigma to mental health and therapy.

A native of Taiwan, he traveled to America after finishing his undergraduate education to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology from Purdue University. He says he believes his rare cross-cultural experience gives him a unique vantage point to communicate to an Asian audience.

“The quest for honor and fear (of) shame is a lot more intense outside of the U.S.,” he said. “The more traditional you are, the more you are shame-based.”

To surmount that fear of shame, he couches his teaching as “emotional training” — training being the key word.

“That’s what they love!” he said. “You have to speak the language.”

In conversation, Huang can be intense, turning faintly red as he punctuates words like “love” and “desire” by clenching an outstretched hand and allowing a dramatic pause.

A few repeated phrases such as “risk defines rewards,” “pursue-distance dynamic,” and “depth psychology of love” pepper the talk and weave a sort of mantra.

Presented with a specific dilemma — boy interested in girl, thinks asking her out might be a mistake for a multitude of reasons — he quickly assumes his East-meets-West mantle.

He explains that the Chinese word for “crisis” combines the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.” The preface is then followed with a step by step analysis of the situation: Don’t be too worried, but take it slow.

At heart, what Huang does is address some of the most apparent and uncomfortable dynamics of personal relationships. He says “dating down” is bound to fail, for instance, and that once one lover relies too heavily on the other for happiness, the relationship is at risk.

What he teaches is backed by 30 years of empirical research, he says.

“I try to teach people to work through paradoxes,” he says. “Love can be the best moment in a life. You can be totally healed. It can also be the most dangerous moment. You can be totally destroyed.”

Huang’s wife Shuyen, to whom he has been married for more than 20 years, says her husband’s outgoing personality is a key to his work.

“He has many friends and he has love for many people,” she said. “I think it kind of manifests in the work he does at Northwestern.”

Reach Jordan Weissmann at [email protected] .