I am very happy to announce that eForum is launching a new column designed to provide IAPSP members with the lively voices of a various Eastern self psychologists and intersubjectivity theorists, mainly in Japan and Taiwan.

Japan has a long history of psychoanalysis. It is said that psychoanalysis in Japan started in 1934 when Heisaku Kosawa, a psychiatrist who had studied psychoanalysis in Vienna from 1932 through 1933, began seeing patients in his psychoanalytic office in Tokyo. The Japan Psychoanalytic Society (JPS), which is the Japanese branch of International Psychoanalytic Association, and The Japan Psycho-Analytical Association (JPA) was established in 1955; both psychoanalytic organizations have produced many quality clinicians and theorists for last 65 years.

The dominant practice in Japanese psychoanalysis, stemming from this source and combined with the study of other Western psychoanalysts, was, until the 1990s, traditional ego psychology. It is now British object relations. In recent years, however, other contemporary schools of thought, such as self psychology, relational psychoanalysis, and intersubjectivity theory have been increasingly recognized in Japanese psychoanalytic circles.

Self psychology and intersubjectivity theories in Japan have continued their remarkable development over the last 20 years. Self psychological and intersubjective groups have been established in several cities in Japan; Institute for Psychotherapy Process (IPP) in Tokyo, Kohut Study Group in Hakata, the Japanese Forum for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology (JFPSP) in Kobe, Sakaebashi Psychotherapy Office in Hiroshima, and National Association for Psychoanalytic Intersubjectivity (NAPI) in Kobe. JFPSP which consolidates these independent groups now has 110 members including 11 international members.

At the personal level, Toshihiko Maruta (who died in 2014), Hideki Wada, Kazunori Nakanishi and Koichi Togashi have aggressively contributed to international community and published many articles in the self psychology journal and books. They and other Japanese clinicians such as Ko Ito, Hideki Oka, and Sachiko Mori have published many books and articles on self psychology, intersubjectivity and relational psychoanalysis in Japan, including many translations of English-written self psychology books.

JFPSP and I provided intensive self psychology courses for Japanese clinicians in New York in 2012 in collaboration with TRISP and 2016 with IPSS. Over 20 Japanese attended in both occasions. JFPSP and I also have invited many self psychological speakers to Japan every year for the last 10 years including Chuck Strozier, Jim Fosshage, Doris Brothers, Amy Joelson, Arthur Gray, Roger Frie and Donna Orange. Frank Lachmann will speak next year. Our workshops with them usually attract over 100 people. The biggest moment was when the Japanese psychoanalytic association, JPA —I am also a board member— invited Donna Orange to be a keynote speaker at their 2018 annual conference in Kyoto. I moderated the keynote address, and other Japanese relational and object relational psychoanalysts were discussants. It was revolutionary that JPA, which has 1500 members, had an annual conference that invited an intersubjective theorist and/or a relational psychoanalyst. We ended Donna’s keynote address on a high note as almost 800 Japanese clinicians saw how Donna discusses trauma, psychoanalysis, and intersubjectivity. I compiled our ten-year history into a book entitled as “Trauma and Ethics: A Conversation between Philosophy and Psychoanalysis” (Iwasaki Gakujyutsu Shuppansha) in 2019, to which Chuck, Doris, Roger, Donna and I contribute.

These aspirations are not exclusive to Japan. I personally have been a member the Taiwan Self Psychology Group (President: Hao-Chung, M.D.) for 10 years. Their group and the Japanese group had a joint conference in 2018 which featured Donna Orange. It was entitled “Historical Trauma in East Asia and Victim-Victimizer Relationship.” On this occasion, an American analyst, some Taiwanese analysts, a Chinese analyst and a Japanese analyst engaged in clinical conversations on this significant topic.

As evidenced by another column in eForum, “Voices from China,” psychoanalytic communities in the East Asian countries are rapidly developing. Many younger clinicians in China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan show increasing interest in self psychology and intersubjective theories. I strongly believe that they have enormous potential for the development of our community. I dream of the chance to go beyond our cultural and historical differences and form a coalition for future of psychoanalysis.

Instsitute for Psychtherapy Process found by Toshihiko Maruta in Tokyo

The 17th Taiwan Self Psychology Conference with Donna Orange and Koichi Togashi in 2018

Donna Orange’s key note speech at the 64h Annual Meeting of Japan Psychoanalytic Association in 2018

Koichi Togashi, Ph.D., L.P.

Koichi Togashi, Ph.D., L.P., is a certified clinical psychologist and a licensed psychologist in Japan; a licensed psychoanalyst in the State of New York; and a certified psychoanalyst at the National Association for Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP), New York. He practices psychoanalysis in Kobe and Hiroshima. He is a member of the faculty, and training & supervising analyst at the Training and Research in Intersubjective Self Psychology Foundation (TRISP), a professor at Konan University, Kobe, Japan, and a mentor of the Taiwan Self Psychology Study Group. He is a member of the Council of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, and an international editor of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context. He is also a member of the Executive Board of the Japan Psycho-Analytical Association, and an editor of The Japanese Journal of Psycho-Analysis. He has published numerous books and articles in Intersubjectivity and Contemporary Self Psychology in the US, Japan, and Taiwan.
His new book, “The Psychoanalytic Zero: A Decolonizing Study of Therapeutic Dialogues” is forthcoming from Routledge.