, also read as Shōma Morita, was a contemporary of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

and the founder of Morita therapy, a branch of

clinical psychology Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or Mental disorder, dysfunction and to promote subjective mental ...

strongly influenced by

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

Buddhism. In his capacity as the head of

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial p ...

for a large

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

hospital, Morita began developing his methods while working with sufferers of ''shinkeishitsu'', or anxiety disorders with a hypochondriac base.

Theory and methods

According to Morita, how a person feels is important as a sensation and as an indicator for the present moment, but is uncontrollable: we don't create feelings, feelings happen to us. Since feelings do not cause our behavior, we can coexist with unpleasant feelings while still taking constructive action. The essence of Morita's method maybe summarized in three rules: Accept all your feelings, know your purpose(s), and do what needs to be done. When once asked what shy people should do, Morita replied, "Sweat." *Accept your feelings - Accepting feelings is not ignoring them or avoiding them, but welcoming them;

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...

ese poet and writer Thich Nhat Hanh recommends we say, "Hello Loneliness, how are you today? Come, sit by me and I will take care of you." Morita's advice: "In feelings, it is best to be wealthy and generous" - that is, have many and let them fly as they wish. *Know your purpose - Implicit in Morita's method, and the traditional Buddhist psychological principles which he adapted, is an independence of thought and action, something a little alien to the Western ideal to "follow our whims and moods". Morita held that we can no more control our thoughts than we can control the weather, as both are phenomena of most amazingly complex natural systems. And if we have no hope of controlling our emotions, we can hardly be held responsible any more than we can be held responsible for feeling hot or cold. We do, however, have complete dominion over our behavior, and for Morita, that is a sacred responsibility. "What needs doing now?" is like a

mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...

in his methods. *Do what needs doing - One can feel crushed and alone or hurt and homicidal while pulling up the weeds in your garden, but one would not be doing it at all if one had not intended to raise flowers. Morita's way of treatment is very different from the Western

diagnosis Diagnosis is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine " cause and effect". In systems engin ...

/disease model. Morita's methods lead his "students" through experiments, and in each assignment, the lesson is not explained by a master, but learned first hand, through the "doing" or ''taiken'', that knowledge gained by direct experience.

Influence

David K. Reynolds, an American author, synthesized parts of Morita therapy along with the practice of Naikan into Constructive Living, an educational method intended for English-speaking Westerners. Constructive Living has since become extremely popular in Japan. Fritz Perls spent a week in a Morita Hospital in Japan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morita, Shoma 1874 births 1938 deaths Japanese psychologists Zen