Some Psychosomatic Disorders in Japan in a Cultural Perspective

Abstract

Social scientists point to Japanese Society as having a high level of group cohesiveness that results from the psychodynamic need to mutual dependency in the Japanese personality structure, which is fostered by symbiotic mother-child relationship in childhood. Such a traditional interdependency seems to modify psychsomatic mechanisms in the Japanese inducing the preponderance of the types of reactions related to what is called 'vegetative retreat'. While over-indulgence to the maternal interdependence may threaten the development of an independent person, the severe deprivation of motherly love may, on the other hand, constitute the core of the modern crises. From this point of view, it is our belief that transcultural studies of psychosomatic mechanisms will contribute to the exploration of the social pathologies and their counter-measures in the present world, as well as to the development of effective therapeutic interventions to psychosomatic problems.