ABSTRACT

Studies on healing practices across cultures have revealed the close relationship between basic cultural concepts and specific forms of treatment, and have underscored the importance of shared worldviews held by client and therapist (Draguns, 1975; Frank & Frank, 1991). Prince (1980) broadened the scope of psychotherapy to include all forms of “altered states of consciousness.” He stated that Western conceptions of psychotherapy must be drastically expanded if we are to understand the diverse therapeutic procedures of other cultures. According to Frank and Frank (1991), all psychotherapies share at least four effective features: a therapist-client relationship, a special healing setting, a therapy rationale, and a therapeutic ritual or procedure. Accepting these elements as “exogenous mechanisms,” Prince (1980) viewed psychotherapy as the mobilization of the person’s “endogenous mechanisms” such as sleep, rest, and social isolation in order to relieve personal distress. Endogenous mechanism such as induced social isolation is a basic element in both Naikan and Morita therapies. It is systematically mobilized to increase client’s attention to previously avoided anxiety provoking events or to important interpersonal relations. The interpretation of the meaning or cause of distress and the methods of relieving suffering vary according to culture.