Abstract
The Morita Therapy is a psychotherapy developed by Sh_ma Morita in 1919, and it has become known as a treatment for neurosis.
It aims to break down obsessions about symptoms and behaviors resulting from anxiety tension, and to redress a patient’s strong perfectionistic way of life. It takes particular note of a patient’s desire for self-fulfillment, which exists inextricably linked to anxiety. like two sides of the same coin, and it makes a patient realize ‘a way of life actualizing oneself in spite of having anxiety’, in another words, ‘learn from his experience of living, accepting things as they are’.
Initially, these treatments were provided to hospitalized patients, but in recent years they are very often provided as outpatient treatments (Outpatient Morita Therapy).
There are quite a number of adult patients with resistant atopic dermatitis, who, often at the time of facing the reality of entrance exams or other incidents, become sensitive to itchiness due to psychic interaction( vicious circle of attention and consciousness )caused by anxiety, or escape into scratching behavior under pressure, and become obsessed with habitual scratching behaviors.
When a patient successfully reaches a stage, through the Outpatient Morita Therapy, that his behaviors of scratching and obsession with atopic dermatitis are broken down, and he starts addressing the challenges of life and feeling joy in self realization, in spite of still having anxiety, his skin symptoms starts improving remarkably.
