Collaboration between General Psychotherapy and Morita Therapy

Abstract

Among several types of therapy included in psychosomatic treatment, general psychotherapy is the basis in providing these types of treatment. For medical doctors engaged in clinical psychosomatic medicine, learning general psychotherapy, in the course of internship is essential, and will affect the nature of therapeutic self in their approach to patients as therapist. In general psychotherapy, which consists of acceptance, support, reassurance, and listening, patients feel their thoughts and feelings being accepted by therapist as they are. Morita therapy is a psychotherapy Masatake Morita established in the 1920s. While traditional Morita therapy prioritized human understanding and the attitude based on treatment theory, it had less emphasis on acceptable attitude toward patients. In today’s Morita therapy, however, therapists accept patients’ symptoms as the basis of treatment, and support patients to lead their everyday lives actively in own ways by leaving those symptoms and associated emotions as they are.