[Studies on Naikan Therapy Focusing on Its Ideological Background -A Comparison between Japanese and Western Patterns of Thought and Reconsidering Max Weber's Theory].

Abstract

A deliberately crafted setting of intensive Naikan therapy has its base in traditional Japa- nese culture that attaches importance to practical and procedural knowledge. Whereas a ratio- nal explanation by using descriptive knowledge is valued in western society, Japanese society tends to value procedural knowledge. The contrast between these two values can be explained by a difference in understanding transcendent existences. In Western society, it has been understood in relation to logos related to logical orderliness. On the other hand, it has been understood in relation to WAZA, which has to do with a magical or hands-on knowledge. Both types of knowledge involve two phases in a process of development; construction and deconstruction. The deconstructive phase in which reformation and renovation of knowledge is induced consists of intuitive and holistic experience, which in Western Christian society is related to hypostasis-persona of the Trinity, while it is related to "sumu" from Shintoism in Japan. Both are symbols of the Creation, coming from the precipitative phenomenon, symbolized in liquid. Insight in psychotherapy is one with a person's experience of deconstructing procedural knowledge. Max Weber has discussed over these two kinds of knowledge and its construction/deconstruction moments. Reconsidering Weber's theory from a psychotherapeutic viewpoint will therefore give us a new key to understand the core of legitimacy of domination and a Tenno system of Japan.