| H |
In
order for us to understand Taopsychotherapy
it would be better for us to first know
your initial background and experiences
in the field of psychotherapy. |
| R |
As
I have mentioned before, in my early
memories as a child, I often saw violent
emotional outbursts by my neighbors
and perceived, "Both happiness
and unhappiness of life are according
to one's control of his emotions."
I felt that 'people are foolish and
get easily swept by emotions'. Even
when others do wrong I tried to believe
that past experiences lead them to such
actions thus with an understanding of
others and myself I decided to try to
understand others instead of conflicting
or being offensive to people.
Of course
it doesn't mean that I was never offensive,
it means I have been offensive where
I needed to protect myself but in all
other cases I have refrained from such
actions. In other words, my ideology
seems to run in a complete opposite
direction compared to the other people
of our nation.
As an example, in my
eyes our country has superior qualities
in terms of national character and culture
with regards to Japan and other foreign
countries. However, others are too quick
to claim the superiority of China, Japan
and other Western nations. |
| H |
Have
you felt all these ever since you were
young? |
| R |
Yes,
ever since I was young. After the Japanese
Occupation, even long after liberation
other people didn't seem to have changed
their perspective about our country.
So I took a moment to realize that I
personally hadn't changed ever since
I was young just like how the other
people hadn't changed after liberation.
When I was in elementary school I recall
how my friend's mother had commented
"Dongshick was just like
a Buddhist
monk, knowledgeable about the ways of
the world". And when I was around
10 years old, I would notice people
renowned for their personality and realize
that they were mere hypocrites.
This
point of view was of course different
with other people as well. While I was
still in elementary school I could take
a look at a person and realize that
"this person was genuine".
When I was in my 20s I would go for
drinks with friends and be able to match
the exact age of female companions.
If I wasn't sure of their age all I
had to do was to feel their hand or
skin and was able to come up with their
exact age. While I was in the US I could
take a look at a patient and could precisely
predict that he/she had suffered from
schizophrenia exactly how many years
back. |
| H |
How
did your experiences proceed once you
had started studying Psychiatry? |
| R |
I
read a book by Kurt Kolle a professor
of the University of Munich where he
wrote about 'Klein Hypnose' which dealt
with the hypnosis of daily life. When
I was in Medical school I had a friend
who had an uncanny ability in hypnosis
of daily life who could unintentionally
cast hypnosis on people. He could entice
people to go for drinks and create a
party like atmosphere among people without
them realizing it.
Such observations
in daily life attracted me to the world
of psychiatry. At that period there
was only a limited type of treatments
in psychiatry, namely Insulin Shock
therapy, electric shock therapy, scopolamine
injection, and sulfur oil injection.
I would read books on Psychoanalysis
and I couldn't understand them for they
were all mere concepts and theories.
I looked for reality but I couldn't
find any in these books.
While I was
at the William Alanson White Institute
of Psychoanalysis, they wanted me to
file a report on anxiety. However I
realized I couldn't accomplish it because
they were all concentrating only on
concepts and theories while moving away
from the reality. |
| H |
Did
you expect to find a new world(?) of
psychotherapy once you started psychiatry? |
| R |
Yes.
Psychotherapy was also introduced in
K. Kolle's book. At that period there
already existed psychoanalysis, hypnotics,
persuasion and suggestion. Ever since
I started practicing my profession I
would always try to understand the mind
of the patients first. In the past all
the psychiatrists could do was to check
the patient's symptoms and offered electric
shock therapy besides there weren't
many good medicine and only things such
as Bromide.
So instead I tried to understand
the mind of the patient, which obviously
was not easy at first. At that time
in the field of psychiatry people believed
that there weren't any meanings to the
symptoms of psychotic patients. However
Binswanger's Phenomenological Daseinsanalysis
was introduced and it lead to people
searching for inner meaning.
And there
was an emphasis on inner life history,
Human's Innere Lebens Geshichte. Normally?
a psychiatrist would observe the behavior
of a patient. In other words the inner
mind of the patient would be ignored.
I myself started to try to see the mind
of the patients and during the period
around liberation from Japanese occupation
I had a female patient in her 30s who
claimed severe headaches. And after
diagnosis it was found that the husband
had given her gonorrhea on their wedding
night and it had made her sterile.
The
husband then got himself a concubine
to bear children and the patient had
been living together with the concubine
for the past 8years. I came to the conclusion
that it was no wonder her headache since
she was living with the concubine.
And
then came my first case of psychotherapy
during the Korean war. During this treatment
I was reading Franz Alexander and French(Thomas
Morton French)'s Psychoanalytic Therapy
and Fenichel's Psychoanalytic Theory
of Neurosis. I have probably gotten
some influence from these books while
I was treating my first patient. |
| H |
And
what year was this? |
| R |
It
was 1953. My patient had a headache
that first resided by taking Aspirin.
Soon this did not work and he had to
rely on a liquid medicine from a psychiatric
clinic for about 6 months but this had
only a momentary effect. He came to
see me after he saw the signboard? of
our clinic which read 'psychotherapy'
and 'mental hygiene'. During our first
interview the reason for his headache
wasn't apparent so I told him to tell
me everything that arise in her mind.
Over a course of 12 sessions I was able
to completely cure his psychogenic headache
through short-term therapy. After 12
interviews his headache was cured but
to treat his basic personality a long
treatment period was required. |
| H |
It
seems that you had already started from
psychotherapeutic psychiatry the moment
you began psychiatry. |
| R |
For
me my interest is not to do psychotherapy
or pharmacotherapy or etc but to cure
the sufferings of patients. This is
why Graeme Taylor (1977) had mentioned
that in my treatment it includes all
of Western theories and techniques. |
