[How to Learn and Practice Psychotherapies -A Proposal from the Japan Psychotherapy Week-].

Abstract

In the JSPN postgraduate training guideline for certified psychiatrists, cognitive-behav- ioral therapy (CBT) is to be referred to, understood, and explained in psychotherapeutic treatments of certain mental disorders. The Japanese Association for Cognitive Therapy has annually sponsored the Cognitive Therapy Workshop for mental health professionals since 2000. The Japan Psychotherapy Week (JPW) has been a dream project of the present author to provide opportunities to learn such psychotherapies as psychoanalysis, Morita therapy, and CBT at the same place during the same periods of time, simultaneously or sequentially. The idea of the JPW has two sources: Differential therapeutics in psychiatry on one hand, and the Japan Digestive Disease Week on the other hand. The JPW2015 "East Meets West" was held at a traditional hotel in Kobe in the evenings of February 21 and 28, 2015. As described in Plato's Symposium, the audience was served food and drinks while listening to the speaker talk about psychoanalysis, Morita therapy, and CBT. The first evening began with making a toast, followed by opening remarks about the author's intentions regarding the JPW, based on excerpts from Zeami's Fushihaden (the Flowering Spirit). Two well-known psychiatrists majoring in CBT and Morita therapy gave an address, entitled: "What is a desirable encounter of East with West?" and "On psychotherapy having roots", respectively. In the second evening, a prominent psychiatrist in the field of psychoanal- ysis gave a lecture on"The power of words in psychotherapy". After drinking a toast, excerpts from Plato's Symposium were presented to identify Eros as a "great daimon" mediating between immortal gods and mortal human beings. The cognitive therapist showed how cognitive therapy has the power of incorporating ele- ments of interpersonal, behavioral, and psychodynamic approaches. The JPW has nothing to do with psychotherapy integration. Instead, cognitive therapy, as an intermediary, will vanish in the process of the JPW. When established, the JPW will further develop the psychotherapeutic competence of psychiatrists.