Shoma (Masatake) Morita, M.D. (1874-1938) was a Japanese psychiatrist-professor who developed a unique four stage therapy process. He challenged psychoanalysts who sanctioned an unconscious or unconsciousness (collective or otherwise) that resides inside the mind. Significantly, he advanced a phenomenal connection between existentialism, Zen, Nature and the therapeutic role of serendipity.
Key Features
- Peripheral Consciousness: Chronicles Morita’s theory and paradoxical method.
- Natural Therapeutic Setting: Design of a setting that enhances therapy.
- Non-Japanese Case Studies: Explores the therapy's benefits outside of Japan for the first time.
- Ecological and Phenomenological Therapy: Personal accounts of training in Japan and practice in Australia and the United States.
- Cruelty-Based Trauma: Discussion on the need for therapy inclusive of ecological settings.
- Dynamic Core of Morita Therapy: Reinstates "consciousness" as key in therapy.
Additional Information
Morita is a forerunner of eco-psychology and he equalised the strength between human-to-human attachment and human-to-Nature bonds. The author’s personal material about training in Japan and subsequent practice of Morita’s ecological and phenomenological therapy in Australia and the United States enhance this book. LeVine’s coining of "cruelty-based trauma" generates a rich discussion on the need for therapy inclusive of ecological settings. As a medical anthropologist, clinical psychologist and genocide scholar, LeVine shows how the four progressive stages are essential to the classic method and the key importance of the first "rest" stage in outcomes for clients who have been embossed by trauma.
Since cognitive science took hold in the 1970s, complex consciousness theories have lost footing in psychology and medical science. The case material illustrates the use of Morita therapy for clients struggling with the aftermath of trauma and how to live creatively and responsively inside the uncertainty of existence. The never before published archival biographic notes and photos of psychoanalyst Karen Horney, Fritz Perls, Eric Fromm and other renowned scholars are included.
