Japanese Psychotherapies

The chapter opens with the title «Chopping Wood, Carrying Water. Life Passes» and an epigraph from Wordsworth. The author Velizara Chervenkova presents Morita therapy as the first of the three Japanese psychotherapies in the book: it arose at the start of the twentieth century, when Freud was putting forward psychoanalytic theory in Europe. The place of the therapy is disputed: some regard it as a natural continuation of Western psychotherapy, others say it is «rooted in Japan's own environment». Morita himself blended Buddhist ideas with his experience with neurotic patients and thought «not only of the Japanese but at a basic human level».

Shōma Morita was born in 1874 in the village of Fuke in Kōchi prefecture, in a family of silkworm farmers. He was a cool-headed child; at nine he saw a depiction of hell in a Buddhist temple, fear of death and nightmares began and bed-wetting continued until fourteen. His father was a strict teacher who forced him to memorise Chinese classics until dawn. Morita ran away from school, was diagnosed with neurosis for headaches and fear of heart trouble, and his father stopped sending money. He caught beriberi in Tokyo, returned home and then began keeping a diary in which he would fill 36 notebooks.

The turning point came in his student years: when at the Tokyo Imperial University medical school neurosis and beriberi laid him low again, he stopped his medicines, chose to prepare for death and studied day and night. His grades rose and the symptoms diminished considerably. This experience proved vital for his later approach: productive effort involuntarily affects mental and physical health. After graduating he worked at Sugamo Hospital under Shūzō Kure, treated patients by trial and error (hypnosis, occupational therapy, bed rest), had difficulty with patients with erythrophobia and even in one case fled from the hospital.

In 1919 Morita began treating neurotic patients at home. The author gives the example of Mrs Yatabe: obsessive mysophobia, hypnosis and persuasion at home failed; Morita sometimes lost his temper and hit her, but when she was left in despair she suddenly recovered. Morita's wife Hisai played a large part in preparing the treatment and in daily work with the patients. In 1928 the book «The True Nature and Therapy of Anxiety-Based Disorders» appeared, in 1932 he opened his own clinic and entered debates with psychoanalysis (Marui, Kosawa).

• The chapter is built in the order of biographical introduction, historical context and therapeutic principles
• All biographical information is given with reference to many sources (Nomura, Iwata, Kitanishi and others)
• The author quotes from Morita's own diaries and memoirs and shows him as a human being, not only a «teacher»
• The chapter explains Japanese cultural terms (for example inugami, Shinkeishitsu) in brackets