ABSTRACT
Morita therapy is a Japanese form of psychotherapy, founded by Morita Shoma (in Japanese, the family name comes first) in around 1917. Students (not clients or patients) of Morita therapy undertake exercises to develop purposeful, aware action in the world. A recent book on Morita therapy (Reynolds, 1985) has a whole chapter on 'Gestalt therapy parallels'. The principles Reynolds sees underlying both Gestalt therapy and Morita therapy are: self-acceptance, paying attention to one's environment, emphasis on experiencing life rather than conceptualising, experiential learning, here-and-now focus, discrimination of reality from fantasy through contact, client responsibility for their process and the paradoxical futility of deliberate change. In terms of the Gestalt cycle (Zinker, 1977), emotion is in the energisation phase, between awareness and action. The Gestalt therapy concept of human psychological development is that it is always a function of biological maturation, environmental influences, interaction of the individual and the environment, and creative adjustment by the unique individual.
