The Anatomy of Self: The Individual Versus Society - Softcover

Doi, Takeo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0870119028 ISBN 13: 9780870119026

Publisher: Kodansha USA Inc, 1988

Synopsis

This work is an exploration of the role of the individual in Japan and Japanese concepts of self-awareness, communication and relationships.

About this title

About the Author

TAKEO DOI (b. 1920), M.D., has served as a professor at the University of Tokyo and International Christian University, Tokyo, and is one of Japan's leading psychiatrists. Born in Tokyo, he graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1942. He held a number of posts at American institutes and universities, including fellowships at the Menninger School of Psychiatry and the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, and was visiting scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland. He also headed the psychiatric department at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo. Doi has published a number of works and contributed to many more, including The Anatomy of Dependence.

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From the Preface

Let me begin by saying a word about the nature of this book. As its title suggests, this book attempts to grasp human phenomena in general from the perspective of omote and ura, two concepts representing a way of looking at things that is unique to the Japanese language. As we shall see, it is possible to approximate these terms in English: Recto-verso, heads and tails, outside-inside, facade-interior, and so on, all give an impression of the meaning of omote and ura. Similarly, facade and truth, mask and real face, outward appearance and inner reality, all hint at the meaning of tatemae and honne. But none of these correspondences between the Japanese terms and English is precisely correct. For one thing, the English expressions make of these dyadic pairs hierarchical oppositions: facade (omote) versus inner truth (ura), outside versus inside, appearance versus reality, and, ultimately, evil versus good. In every case, the term corresponding to omote is seen as a negation, as a complication of the more "authentic" half of the pair. While this tendency is certainly not absent in modern Japanese usage of the terms, I felt that forcing them into English would only serve to exacerbate the problem and, therefore, decided to retain the original Japanese words in the English version of my book.

To the extent that omote and ura are uniquely Japanese, this book has something of the character of the so-called Nihonjinron (theories of the Japanese). As was true of Amae no Kozo (published in English as The Anatomy of Dependence), however, my purpose in writing this book is not merely to offer yet another theory explaining the Japanese. My real aim is to examine these Japanese concepts in light of ideas that originate in the West and, by doing so, to deepen them and to discover in them a universal significance. This has been the direction of my scholarly work from the very beginning.

I have taken this direction because I am a practicing clinical psychiatrist. The specialist's jargon is almost useless in a clinical situation. The whole battle is won or lost depending on what kind of communication the psychiatrist is able to establish with the patient. But precisely because this is true, psychiatrists must always keep their eyes open to what underlies language--the nuances that exist in the depths of words--and they must take responsibility for the words that they use themselves.

Therefore, even though I do discuss the health or illness of the mind, that is not the premise of my argument. Rather, for the reasons stated above, that distinction itself is subjected to analysis. It is for the same reasons that, in my discussion of other issues, I have always attempted first to clarify the meanings of the words I am using. And, again, this is why I am asking my foreign readers to go to the trouble of learning a number of terms in Japanese.

I have been forced to go far beyond the boundaries of my own academic specialty, searching for insights in the fields of sociology, philosophy, literature, and religion. This book is a synthesis of what I have gained from this search, and I hope that the reader will accept it as such.

Edition details

• Publisher: Kodansha USA Inc
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0870119028
• ISBN 13: 9780870119026
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 168