Some types of treatment
method developed in Japan, such as Morita therapy and Naikan Therapy. For them,
An additional goal is to attain “arugamama,” or the Zen Buddhist ideal of
accepting as they are (Tatara, p230) which is the basic tenet in Morita Therapy
created by Shoma Morita in 1930. Naikan therapy was started in 1940s by Ishin
Yoshimoto, a devout Buddhist which was developed by the meditation-based
practice and was aimed at becoming aware of how much contribution his mother,
father, siblingws etc. Both of these methods urge patients a passive acceptance
of their reality and destiny, but from a Western perspective, its relative lack
of theoretical rationale and evidential basis for these methods might not be
convincing. However,
“emptiness” based philosophy of Zen appears to merge rather smoothly to, and
provide additional philosophical basis for the theory of transience and
mortality and dialectic concept of life and death.
Tatara, M (1982) Psychoanalytic
Psychotherapy in Japan; the Issue of Dependency Pattern and the Resolution of
Psychopathology. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 10:225-229.
We might also take a note that there seems to be a common
thread between Freud’s theory of identification and Nishida’s and Nishitani’s
theories of experiences where the self mergers and “becomes one” with the
object. However, this state does not represent a psychotic breakdown with a
loss of ego-boundary. This rather mean a healthy ego-state where a self can
partake other’s perspective in a dialectic fashion and can engage in a dialogue
with the internalized (lost) others. Through identificatory mourning process the
self is populated with others, instead of being intruded by others.
Conclusion
In this article I discussed Freud’s work On Transience,
especially the idea of transience and its relationship to mourning and related theory
of identification. We saw how the aspect of Hoffman’s dialectic constructivist
view exemplified Freud’s informal existential discussion of mortality. We then
switched the focus to Japanese analyst’s and philosopher and see the common
thread between them. I proposed the idea of the element of absence, discussed
in current analytic literature which can function as a mediator for the
experience in Japanese culture, which could be rooted in Japanese philosophy,
particularly in the theory of nothingness and emptiness on the basis of the Zen
tradition.