Introducing an ‘Oitachi Record’ before Intensive Naikan Therapy: A Discussion of the Benefits

Abstract

  Since resistance sometimes occurs in Intensive Naikan Therapy, we introduced the ‘Oitachi Record’ (a record of personal history), as a way for clients to reflect on their whole lives prior to beginning to work with the three questions. The Oitachi Record felt to clients like an intake, and it served as a warm-up for the three tasks of Naikan Therapy, thus reducing clients’ resistance to them. For clients who could immerse themselves in the writing and concentrate upon it deeply, this engagement seemed to reduce other expressions of resistance as well. It is important for Naikan therapists to consider changes in Zeitgeist that might influence the forms in which resistance can arise, and to devise ways to reduce resistance to Intensive Naikan Therapy.