Demystifying Japanese Therapy: An Analysis of Naikan and the Ajase Complex through Buddhist Thought

Naikan has been viewed as a culturally specific therapy aimed at resocializing clients into conservative Japanese social norms. The Ajase complex is used to support this view by illustrating specifically Japanese therapeutic needs arising from the Japanese mother-child dynamic. Based on ethnographic work conducted in Japan and Austria from 1997 to 2003, this article traces the logic of this conservative view and the challenges posed to it by Naikan's increasing success outside Japan. Reexamining Naikan and Ajase in light of the Buddhist tradition from which they stem shows that Naikan's efficacy lies in its mechanism of deconstructing fixed, unrealistic notions of self and other and replacing them with a new understanding of relationality that recognizes individuality as existing only within interdependence. This better explains Naikan's success abroad and shows that the efficacy of culturally situated therapies may be less limited than previously thought if they are based on psychological principles with cross-cultural relevance.