Freud and the Far East

Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the People and Culture of China, Japan, and Korea

Salman Akhtar

• Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc.
• Year: 2009
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798216350088
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychoanalysis
• Index: Psychology

This book is a lexical ambassador with the dual responsibility of bridging the West and East and enhancing psychoanalytic conceptualization in the course of such an encounter. By juxtaposing the familiar with the unfamiliar, it seeks to enrich our understanding of both. Within its pages, distinguished psychoanalysts from East and West weave a fine and colorful tapestry of the ubiquitous and idiosyncratic, the plebian and profound, and the neurotically-inclined and culturally-nuanced. They provide meticulous historical accounts of the development of psychoanalysis in Japan, Korea, and China and familiarize the reader with interesting personages, quaint phrases, cultural nuances, founding of journals, and emergence of groups interested in psychoanalysis. The contributors to the book discuss the depth-psychological concepts of amae, Wa, Ajase complex, and the "filial piety complex," thus underscoring the intricate interplay of drive and ego development with the powerful forces of ancestral legacies and their attendant myths and fantasies. The reverberations of these aesthetic and relational paradigms in epic love stories, martial arts, and cinema are also elucidated. In addition, the book offers insights into the psychosocial trials and tribulations of the Western immigrant populations from these countries and their offspring. Finally, the implications of all this to the conduct of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are addressed.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. TALES AND TERRAINS
• Chapter 01. Psychoanalysis in Japan
• Chapter 02. Psychoanalysis in Korea
• Chapter 03. Psychoanalysis in China
• Part II. TRADITIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS
• Chapter 04. Two Kinds of Guilt Feelings:The Ajase Complex
• Chapter 05. Amae: East and West
• Chapter 06. Wa: Harmony and Sustenance of the Self in Japanese Life
• Chapter 07. Psychoanalysis in the “Shame Culture” of Japan: A “Dramatic” Point of View
• Chapter 08. The Butterfly Lovers: Psychodynamic Reflections on the Ancient Chinese Love Story “Liang-Zhu”
• Chapter 09. The Filial Piety Complex: Variations on the Oedipus Theme in Chinese Literature and Culture
• Chapter 10. Transformation of Korean Women: From Tradition to Modernity
• Chapter 11. The Food-Sex Equation: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Three Sizzling Movies from the Far East
• Chapter 12. Zen, Martial Arts, and Psychoanalysis in Training the Mind of the Psychotherapist
• Part III. TRANSPOSITIONS AND TECHNIQUES
• Chapter 13. The Chinese American Family: Some Psychoanalytic Speculations
• Chapter 14. Second-Generation Korean Americans
• Chapter 15. An American-Japanese Transcultural Psychoanalysis and the Issue of Teacher Transference
• Chapter 16. Naikan—A Buddhist Self-Reflective Approach: Psychoanalytic and Cultural Reflections
• Chapter 17. Psychoanalytic Therapy across Civilizations: Asians and Asian Americans
• References
• Index
• About the Contributors