Understanding Amae: The Japanese Concept of Need-Love

216 Pages·2005·14.91 MB·English

by  Takeo Doi

Understanding Amae:
The Japanese Concept of Need-love
Takeo Doi, M.D.
The Collected Papers of
Twentieth-Century Japanese Writers
on Japan
VOLUME 1
Collected Papers
of
TAKEO DOI
Understanding Amae:
The Japanese Concept of Need-love
GLOBAL
ORIENTAL
Series: COLLECTED PAPERS OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY JAPANESE WRITERS ON JAPAN
Volume 1
Takeo Doi: Understanding Amae'. The Japanese Concept of Need-love
First published in 2005 by
GLOBAL ORIENTAL LTD
PO Box 219
Folkestone
Kent CT20 2WP
UK
www.globaloriental.co.uk
© Takeo Doi 2005
ISBN 1-901903-28-1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
May be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
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Or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
a CLP catalogue entry for this book is available
From the British Library
Set in 11 on 12 point by Bookman, Hayes, Middlesex
Printed and bound in England by Antony Rowe Ltd., Chippenham, Wilts
Contents
Preface vn
Foreword by Hirakawa Sukehiro ix
1. Some Aspects of Japanese Psychiatry (1955) 1
2. Japanese Language as an Expression of Japanese
Psychology (1956) 8
3. Amae\ A Key Concept for Understanding Japanese
Personality Structure (1962) 14
4. Morita Therapy and Psychoanalysis (1962) 22
5. Some Thoughts on Helplessness and the Desire to be
Loved (1963) 31
6. Psychoanalytic Therapy and ‘Western Man’: A Japanese
View (1964) 40
7. Giri-Ninjo'. An Interpretation (1967) 47
8. Japanese Psychology, Dependency Need and Mental
Health (1969) 53
9. A Psychiatrist’s View on Zeitgeist (1971) 60
10. A Japanese Interpretation of Erich Segal’s Love Story (1972) 64
11. Psychotherapy as ‘Hide-and-Seek’ (1973) 73
12. The Japanese Patterns of Communication and the
Concept of Amae (1973) 78
13. Omote and Ura'. Concepts Derived from the
Japanese Two-fold Structure of Consciousness (1973) 85
14. Higaisha-ishiki'. The Psychology of Revolting Youth in
Japan (1974) 90
15. Uchimura Kanzo: Japanese Christianity in Comparative
Perspective (1979) 97
16. Psychotherapy - A Cross-cultural Perspective from
Japan (1984) 125
17. The Thom in the Chrysanthemum: Suicide and Economic
Success in Modem Japan (1987) 136
18. The Concept of Amae and its Psychoanalytic
Implications (1989) 14O
19. The Japanese Psyche: Myth and Reality (1989) 149
20. The Cultural Assumptions of Psychoanalysis (1990) 155
21. On the Concept of Amae (1992) 163
22. Amae and Transference-Love (1993) 169
23. Psychoanalysis in a Cross-cultural Context: A Japanese
View (1993) 175
24. Foreword to Japanese Childrearing (1996) 182
25. Amae and the Western Concept of Love (1999) 185
26. Is ‘Narcissistic’ Pejorative? (2002) 190
27. Are Psychological Concepts of Japanese Origin
Relevant? (2002) 192
Index of Names
General Index
Preface
It is a great honor to have had Professor S. Hirakawa write a very
informative foreword to this Collection of my papers. We have known
each other for many years and it was my good fortune indeed that I was
once asked to participate in very exciting discussions of world literature at
international conferences he organized. I should emphasize here that this
Collection itself would not have come into being were it not for his strong
encouragement and recommendation. I therefore want to avail myself of
this occasion to express my heartfelt thanks for his friendship.
Most of the papers in this Collection were written for presentation at
various international meetings during the past half century. The subjects
dealt with here are as varied as the titles of each paper suggest.
Interestingly, however, all the papers take up amae in one way or another
as a central concept for discussion, thus throwing light in turn on the
concept of amae from various angles. In fact this Collection will serve as a
complement to my earlier book, The Anatomy of Dependence (Kodansha
International, 1973), which made amae known to the English-speaking
public for the first time. Again, speaking of amae, and as an additional
reference, it may not be out of place to mention here my good friend Frank
Johnson’s scholarly work, Dependency and Japanese Socialization, Psycho­
analytic and Anthropological Investigations into Amae (New York University
Press, 1993) for further reference. Also, may I recommend another book of
mine, The Anatomy of Self (Kodansha International, 1986), for further
elucidation of the conceptual world where amae is viable?
I sincerely hope that even those who never heard of amae before will
stumble on something here that can be said to be almost familiar, though it
possibly was never acknowledged as such. Now, in closing, let me thank
those colleagues and friends who either provided me with occasions to
contribute papers or strongly encouraged me to do so. Some of them are
dead now. May their souls rest in peace. Finally, I want to thank Ms
Ayako Nakagawa who typed many of the papers presented here, even
digging up some reference material and also did invaluable service in
preparing the indexes.
TAKEO DOI
Tokyo
November 2004
vii
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Given the fact that over the last half century Professor Doi’s writings have appeared mostly
in American journals, it seemed most appropriate to republish them here in their original
form, conforming with US spelling and punctuation norms. Elsewhere, British English
conventions have been applied or respected.
viii
Foreword
BY SUKEHIRO HIRAKAWA
Professor Emeritus, Tokyo University
Honorary Member, MLA
Dr Takeo Doi with his Amae no kozd (Tokyo, Kobundo publishers,
1971) has had an immense impact both on the psychiatric world of
specialists and on the Japanese readership in general. By 2003 the book
had achieved a sale of almost one-and-a-half million copies.
Then, what is amael Doi explains the meaning of the Japanese word as
follows: amae is the noun form of '‘amaeru’, an intransitive verb meaning ‘to
depend and presume upon another’s benevolence’ (Doi, 1956). This word
has the same root as amai, an adjective that means ‘sweet*. Thus, amaeru
has a distinct feeling of sweetness and is generally used to describe a child’s
attitude or behaviour towards his parents, particularly his mother. Doi
believes that there is no single word in English equivalent to amaeru,
though this does not mean that the psychology of amae is totally alien to
the people of English-speaking countries. I am sure that you will find
among children in English-speaking countries those who amaeru - that is,
his or hers is a dependent nature always seeking for someone on which to
lean. However, as amae was first presented by Doi himself as a key concept
for understanding the Japanese personality structure, it has sometimes
been interpreted as something peculiarly Japanese. This interpretation is
not correct.
Two years after the publication of the Japanese original, Amae no kozd
was translated into English. The English title given by the translator John
Bester was The Anatomy of Dependence (Tokyo, Kodansha International,
1973). Ezra Vogel wrote in his review: '(The Anatomy of Dependence is)
perhaps the first book by a Japanese trained in psychiatry to have an impact
on Western psychiatric thinking.’ Then followed the German, Korean,
French, Italian, Chinese, Indonesian and Thai translations. The German
translation was entitled Amae: Freiheit in Geborgenheit (1982) and the
French translation Le Jeu de Vlndulgence (1988). The German and the
French translators gave these different titles, probably trying to avoid the
negative impression that the word dependence implies in the title of the
English version. Quite a lot of confusion concerning the key concept has
arisen, and clarification is necessary.
Fortunately, good ways are now open to those who wish to understand
correctly what Doi means by the psychology of amae. Here in his Collected
ix
UNDERSTANDING AMAE: THE JAPANESE CONCEPT OF NEED-LOVE
Papers, all that Dr Doi has written in English is published for the first time
in a single volume. For more than half a century Dr Doi has actively
attended many international conferences where he explains in various ways
his concept of amae. His are papers of ingenious skill, full of shrewd
psychological insights. They have always been welcomed and have been
published in academic journals throughout the world. Twenty-seven
papers are brought together here, and are placed chronologically. Though
not a psychiatrist myself, I very much appreciate Dr Doi’s writings both in
Japanese and English, and I feel privileged to be asked to write a Foreword
for this volume.
Takeo Doi was bom in 1920. He graduated from Tokyo University in
1942. After The Second World War, he went to study at the Meninger
School of Psychiatry in Topeka, Kansas, in 1950, which was to mark the
beginning of his frequent visits to the United States. While serving as
psychiatrist-in-chief at St Luke’s International Hospital, Tokyo, Doi
initiated seminars in psychotherapy at Tokyo University School of
Medicine. He then became professor at Tokyo University during the
years of the students’ rebellion. Later, he was appointed the director of the
National Institute of Mental Health, Tokyo. His seven books concerning
amae were published by the Kobundo press between 1971 and 2001. His
eight-volume selected writings, Doi Takeo senshu, were published by the
Iwanami shoten in 2000.
Let me add some personal observations of mine which will explain
partially the success of Doi’s books among Japanese general readers. I am a
comparative culture scholar, and am very much interested in the
psychology of amae. The reasons are mainly as follows.
As I have said, amae is considered one of the key concepts which provide
an understanding in depth of many aspects of Japanese culture. Doi
himself once taught depth psychology using the novels of Natsume Soseki
at Waseda University. (See his The Psychological World of Natsume Soseki,
1976.) He tried a literary analysis, applying the concept of amae to other
works of literature as well. One of his successful applications in this
direction is ‘A Japanese Interpretation of Erich Segal’s Love Story9 (1972)
which appears in this volume. On our initiative, together with Dr Doi as a
commentator, a dozen scholars from Japan, Korea and European countries
held international symposia to analyse works of literature, using the key
concept of amae. The results of those conferences were published in Amae
de hungaku o toku (Analysis of Literature, using the concept of amae, Hirakawa
and Tsuruta ed., Tokyo, Shinyosha, 1996). Psychological worlds of
dependence of Kafka, Dostoevski, Yi Sang, Shiga Naoya and other
Japanese writers have been elucidated to a surprising degree.
I am not sure if Dr Doi agrees with the following, but it seems to me that
the world of Japanese haiku always takes for granted something unspoken
in order to make sense of what is literally conveyed there. Haiku poets as
well as haiku readers are accomplices of silence: brought up in a culturally
homogeneous society, the Japanese share unspoken connotations to a
x