自由論題［研究ノート］

An Analysis Based on Intersubjective
Communication in Psychoanalytic
Psychotherapy

Toward the Discovery of the‘Preemptive Guilt’in theContext of Japanese Culture

精神分析的心理療法におけるインターサブジェ
クティブな交流に基づいた分析

日本文化における‘先取り型罪悪感’の発見に向けて

Sachiko Mori
Associate Professor, Faculty of Policy and Management, Keio University
森 さち子
慶應義塾大学総合政策学部准教授

Abstract:

This paper analyzed the interactions of psychoanalytic psychotherapy between
a Japanese client and her Japanese therapist over the issue of ‘guilt feelings’ fromintersubjective perspectives. This led to the discovery of a third kind of guilt, seen
as typically Japanese, or ‘preemptive guilt,’ after two kinds of guilt described by
Japanese psychoanalysts, namely, ‘guilt feelings as a fear of punishment’ and‘guilt feelings following forgiveness.’ At a certain time point in the course of thistherapy, the therapist was stricken by a sense of guilt and spontaneously apologized
to the client. This triggered a move forward in the therapy and uncovered the exact
elements of their interactions that had driven the enactment of guilt feelings.
本稿では、日本人であるクライアントとセラピストとの間に生じた、罪悪感をめぐる精神分析的心理療法の交流を、
間主観的な観点から分析した。それによって筆者は、日本の精神分析において論じられてきた２種の罪悪感、
“処罰恐れ
型”と
“許され型”に加え、極めて日本的と言える“先取り型”罪悪感を見出した。
セラピー過程のある局面において、セラピストはクライアントに罪悪感を抱き、思わず自分から謝った。これを契機に心理療法が展開した。二人の間のどのような相互交流がこのようなエナクトメントに結びついたのかを明らかにした。

Keywords: psychoanalytic psychotherapy, intersubjective communication, guilt feelings,
enactment, Japanese culture
精神分析的心理療法、
インターサブジェクティブな交流、罪悪感、
エナクトメント、
日本文化

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1 PrefaceThis paper aims to discuss the intersubjective process surrounding the‘sense of guilt’ observed in a clinical example of a Japanese female client
treated by her Japanese therapist. The first psychoanalytical exploration of
guilt in the history of Japanese psychoanalysis goes back to a paper entitled“Two Kinds of Guilt Feelings,” which Kosawa submitted to S. Freud in1932 (Kosawa, 1953). In it, Kosawa proposed distinguishing between ‘guilt
feelings as a fear of punishment’ and ‘guilt feelings following forgiveness.’
The first type of guilt is connected to the fear of being punished. On theother hand, ‘guilt feelings following forgiveness’ arise spontaneously when
one feels forgiven. Kosawa referred to the Greek mythology of Oedipus withthe former, and a Buddhist sutra entitled “Ajase” [1]� with the latter (Kosawa,1954).
Subsequently, in his discussion of object relations in Japanese culture,
Okonogi clarified the mechanism of these two types of guilt by relating theformer to the paternal principle of Oedipus complex, and the latter, to thematernal principle of the Ajase complex (Okonogi, 1979). The mythology ofOedipus is a tragic story in which his mother commits suicide and Oedipus
blinded himself, after which he sets out on a wandering journey. In contrast,in the story of Ajase, the mother’s devotion to his care as atonement forher sin was perceived by Ajase as forgiveness of the sin he himself hadcommitted, and he genuinely felt sorry for his actions. Okonogi maintains
that this forms the basis of the emotional oneness between a mother and herchild, through which they can both be liberated from their own sins, giving
it an optimistic cast. Behind such optimism, Okonogi identified a sense of‘amae’ in interpersonal relations unique to the Japanese, in which maternal
principles prevailed (Okonogi, 1979). This kind of mentality surrounding
optimism in a mutual sense of unity is similar to what Doi discussed in his
theory of Amae (Doi, 1971).
As anthropologist Yanagida (1950) noted, Japanese people casually use
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the language of apology in everyday life. Okano observed that, behind theexcessive use of the language of guilt, there is a dependence-seeking or amae
mentality characteristic of the Japanese. When a Japanese person apologizes,
he or she is feeling dependent on others, and even expects to be comfortedby them in return (Okano, 2009).
Based on the discussion above, in Japanese culture, where maternal
principles prevail, the sense of guilt is not so much linked with theclarification of an individual’s sin as with interdependence or the sharedfeeling of being forgiven within a sense of unity. This is where the Japanesemode of intersubjective communication comes into play. Concerning
psychoanalysis (Freud, S.), which was born in Western culture where
its theory and practice have since evolved, Togashi and Kottler made animportant suggestion to help understand the therapeutic relationship from theJapanese perspective of ‘twinship’ (Togashi and Kottler, 2015). I also believethat it is of value to deepen psychoanalytical discussion in the context ofJapanese culture.
In the process of Client A’s psychotherapy, which is illustrated inthis paper, a kind of enactment triggered a turning point that changed ourtherapeutic relationship. When A missed one appointment, I was unsure
whether it was her mistake or mine. Seeing A coming to my office a week
later, looking innocent and as if nothing had happened, I was taken by asense of guilt, and words of apology slipped out of my mouth, although I
was not sure if I myself had miscommunicated the date of the appointment
or not. My sense of guilt and apology had, in a way, anticipated what was
to unfold between us two. The preemptive nature of my sense of guilt andwords of apology, I believe, characterizes a specific mode of enactment
associated with Japanese culture. By examining the content of intersubjective
communication exchanged with my client, I will most likely be able toelucidate the nature of interactions which had led to this kind of enactment.

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2 Case Vignette [2]Client A is a woman in her late 20s who complained of difficulty infitting into new situations and environments. A traumatic experience of racial
discrimination she suffered in her teenage years while in a foreign country
was suspected to have had a causative link. A 50-minute once-weekly session
was prescribed.
[The First Three Months of Psychotherapy]
A actively talked nonstop, not giving me, the therapist, any chance tointerrupt her. She also repeatedly complained that she would forget essential
things. As the psychotherapy sessions progressed, she began to reveal
various aspects of her personality. For example, when she realized that she
was beginning to harbor feelings of dependency on me, however minor, shequickly became defensive and excessively active.
On days when no psychotherapy sessions were scheduled, moreover, A
ran to the extreme and engaged in ‘certain activities’ [3] as if to fill the void.
In response, the therapist conveyed her thoughts on A’s emotional
instability that had prompted her to act out in this way. Then, in the following
session, for the first time, A began to talk in quite specific terms about her
parents, who had been unable to help her when she had suffered traumatic
experiences in the past. As we started discussing A’s internal conflict withher parents about her traumatic experiences, the summer holidays began.
She faced the reality that the therapist on whom she was about to become
dependent would separate from her, albeit temporarily. At the time, however,neither of us were aware that it was going to reactivate the client’s pastexperience of seeking her parents’ support without success when she wasseriously traumatized, or, in other words, the possibility that the ‘repetitive
dimensions of the transference’ (Stolorow and Atwood, 1992) would soon
unfold in this dyadic relationship, and be brought to the fore in therapy.

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[An Illusionary Session]
Since the summer holidays are quite long, the therapist and A agreed tohold three extra sessions during this period.
At the second session during the holiday, A declared that she had
engaged once again in ‘certain activities.’ A month later, A did not show up
for the next session, and I wondered why. When I was waiting and expecting
her to come, I thought first that she might have mistaken the date. I thenbegan to suspect that it might have been me who had given her the wrong
date at the end of the last session. One week later, when she arrived, looking
totally innocent, I concluded that it must have been my mistake and felt
somewhat guilty, so words of apology slipped out of my mouth. “Last week,
I was expecting you, maybe because I gave you the wrong date. I’m sorry.”...
A looked puzzled, with a blank look on her face.
[The Quality of the Relationship Changes]
During this session, A continued to tell her story. A moment later, shebegan to talk about her friends. Quickly noticing that I was going to throw in
a comment, she asked me if I was going to say something. Until then, being
too keen to talk about herself and preoccupied by her problems, she had paid
no attention to other people. So this was the first time she had noticed that I
was trying to say something.
This showed that the quality of her relationship with me was beginningto change. I felt that, although up to now she had been talking without
listening, she was now able to perceive that I, who was willing to listen to her
story, was sitting in front of her.
[The First Occasion of Discussing Guilt Feelings]
Since that point, I, as the therapist, consistently focused on A’s deepseated conflict about dependence which was being displaced by ‘certain
activities.’ A then expressed her honest feelings of guilt toward her parents

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involving those activities. At that moment, I considered that the fact that I
conveyed my guilt to her a month ago might have some link with the factthat she had begun to speak, for the first time, about the feelings of guilt
she had toward her parents. As she became more aware of her guilt feelings,
her insight into her dependence, which was being displaced by ‘certain
activities’, deepened.

3 Discussion
3.1 The Therapist’s Sense of Guilt that She was ‘Aware’ and ‘Unaware’
While I was feeling more and more uneasy, suspecting that I might havegiven the wrong date to A, I apologized to her. However, I had no conscious
intention of using it as a therapeutic intervention. The act was an expressionof my bad conscience. I simply felt sorry for the wrong I had done her. In
that sense, I was enacting my apology to her. I developed the following
thoughts around this apology.
First, I was aware of my guilt feeling for having deprived her of thechance to receive one session. Later, with further introspection, I discovered
another reason for feeling guilty. In the session that was resumed during thesummer vacation, A somehow put me off when she spoke quite graphically,in an aloof and uninterested tone, about ‘certain activities.’ And if I had given
her the wrong date for the next appointment at the end of that session, I
may have done so unknowingly, due to an unconscious desire to temporarily
keep a distance from a woman who engaged in ‘certain activities.’ I believe
that, while being unaware of it, I was feeling guilty for my inadequacy as atherapist.
3.2 Reciprocal Exchanges about Guilt and Sincerity
A, I believe, also had an experience surrounding guilt in the following
manner. Her parents’ guilt: I could see from A’s recollections that her parents
had suffered from a sense of guilt for not having offered any help to their
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child when they lived in a foreign country, though they had never verbalized
it. A’s guilt: As therapy progressed, she became increasingly aware of her
guilt feelings for ‘certain activities’ and keeping it secret from her parents.
The other factor that had influenced me to focus our therapy on thesense of guilt, I believe, was A’s earnestness. When I saw A the week after the
missing session, looking as if nothing had happened, and being so eager totalk like she always did, I was deeply touched by her courage. In fact, being
so earnest in her constant effort as a client, A urged me to respond withsincerity on my part as a therapist. And this kind of interaction unknowingly
characterized the nature of our relationship. Further, her sincerity may havereactivated my inherent obsession with therapist’s integrity. Therefore, myapology to her, in a sense, was a pledge for me to be truthful to her.
For such reciprocal exchanges, Jaenicke states, “We can’t hide behind
our role in terms of the impact we have on clients and that they have onus” (Jaenicke, 2008, p.6). This was exactly where you can experience what
Orange refers to as ‘There is no outside’ between a client and a therapist(Orange, 2002). The apology of the therapist is thought to be an act that grewout of a chain of overlapping interactions between the two.
3.3 Intersubjective Exchanges in ‘Preemptive Guilt’
In closing, I would like to discuss emotional interchanges about asense of guilt in the context of Japanese culture, by taking into account thefact that both the client and the therapist in this case are Japanese. First,
when I apologized to A, it was not in fear of punishment. In other words,
it was not for fear of being reproached by the client or criticized by mysupervisor. Rather, if the fault was mine, by honestly admitting it, I wanted
to receive A’s forgiveness. Also, I think I wanted to access her tenderness,by truthfully acknowledging my mistake and conveying it to A. I also felt
secure that A would accept my apology without reproaching me. If that was
the case, there must have been hidden inside me an optimistic expectation

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to be forgiven, which was typically Japanese in its nature, or a kind of‘amae’ directed at A. If A had grown up in a non-Japanese culture, such an
implicit assumption would not have occurred to me. On the contrary, out offear of being reproached for my mistake, I may have hesitated to apologize
straightforwardly.
On the other hand, because of her traumatic experience with her
dependence objects, A was vulnerable and scared of being hurt again,
and suffered from a serious conflict about her need of dependence. Her
unsatisfied desire for dependence had turned into ‘certain activities.’ For
someone like this, by being apologized to by me and by witnessing myweaknesses and amae, she may have felt relief, as if a heavy burden had
been lifted off her shoulders. For A, who was latently feeling guilty for her‘certain activities’, my expressing feelings of guilt before her had ‘fertilized
the soil’ for a place where she could feel safe to face her guilt. The feelingsof guilt that had lurked ambiguously inside A, her parents and the therapist,
may probably have drifted between the two for some time. My uncertainty
about my own mistake may have cleared the air of the guilt feelings thatwere then hovering between the two, and crystallized them into an enactmentof apology. I believe that this ‘preemptive’ type of guilt had, as is often
manifested in Japanese culture, an aspect of amae, that, if you are the firstto admit your fault, you will be accepted and forgiven; there was also theunspoken assumption that other person will open his or her heart more to
you as a result. Having been sensitive to the emotional air that had vaguely
become created between the two, and by preemptively perceiving it andpresenting it to A, I was able to help create, in A’s mind, the extra capacity
to feel a sense of guilt, which until then had been difficult to perceive andacknowledge.

4 Conclusion
The intersubjective communication triggered by the therapist’s apology
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was a deeply meaningful experience for A that enabled her to step out into
a new mode of human relationships. The context implicitly shared between
the two was uncovered, and by exploring, in depth, the content of mutualinteractions, I deepened my understanding of preemptive guilt which is an
aspect of guilt feelings different from the ‘guilt feelings following forgiveness’so far discussed as typical in Japanese culture.
In this paper, therefore, I have illustrated a new type of guilt bycapturing an intersubjective process in a psychoanalytic therapeutic
relationship, which embedded in the context of Japanese culture. This
practice of detailed exploration by casting layers of light on the content
of interaction with the client, will, I am sure, offer valuable clues to better
understand enactments with our future clients.

Notes[1] Ajase was the son of a king in India. The queen, fearing the loss of her youth and beauty,
wanted to bear a child so she could retain the king’s love for her. A prophet told her thata hermit who lived in the forest would be reborn as the king's son. The queen, however,
could not wait for the maturation of prophecy, and killed the hermit and conceived a baby
prince. Just before being slain, the hermit had told the queen that he would be reborn
as her son and curse his father. The queen, fearful of what she had done, tried to abort
and kill the baby, but failed. When Ajase grew up and learned the secret surrounding hisbirth, he murdered his father in a furious rage, and, just as he was about to kill his mother,
he developed a severe case of abscess. Seeing his mother’s selfless devotion to his care,
Ajase felt that his sin was forgiven by her, and was stricken by a profound sense of guilt(Okonogi, 2001).
[2] This paper was written with a focus on intersubjective communication necessary for
examining the main theme. Therefore, the Case Vignette described in this paper is not afull account of all the facts.
[3] The term ‘certain activities’ refers to a pattern of activities which the client had repeatedly
engaged in. After having engaged in this behavior, she was stricken with feelings of selfdisgust; still, she was unable to stop them. It was the kind of behavior that worried herparents and broke their heart.

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〔受付日 2016. 5. 27〕〔採録日 2016.10.25〕

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