Abstract
In a rapidly changing society, we must reconsider the way sociology understands ‘others’. Drawing upon the insights of clinical scientist, E.H.Erikson, I take ‘nonviolence’ and ‘mutuality’ as crucial for communicating with others. He shows this, in Gandhi's Truth., as a convergence of the method of Freud and that of Gandhi. Clinical work is a therapeutical ‘encounter’ in that the disciplined clinician discards his status of social superiority, participates in the patient's inner life as a partner, accepts accusations and suspicions to the doctor, yet gives the patients a space to recall memories of repressed conflict within the unconscious. As nonviolent activists like Gandhi show in their practices, to be willing to suffer by discarding one's own body assists others to discover nonviolence in their mind, and transforms the conflictive relation with others to mutuality.
