Toyo Eiwa University Repository / 東洋英和女学院大学学術リポジトリ
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"Exorcising" One's Images of Death in Living Up to Death by Paul Ricoeur
Get PDFThe posthumous work by Paul Ricoeur, Living Up to Death (2007) is composed of two parts. The first contains two archival documents, one entitled “Up to Death. Mourning and cheerfulness.”, the other simply “Death”. These two texts are thought to have been written between 1995 and 1997. The texts of this first part are interrupted around 1997. The period of his writing these works corresponds to that of the illness and death of his wife. Thus, it is also possible to see in this accompaniment of her last days, one of the reasons why he conducted a meditation on death. The second part, Fragments”, was written between 2004 and 2005. In the first part, he ends up fighting against his self-created images of the dead. In the name of the minimal task of philosophical reflection, the conceptual clarification of the status of the dead has therapeutic value. It is important to “exorcise” one’s questioning about the fate of the dead and its emotional investment. Ricoeur’s effort is devoted to the battle against his imagined world of the dead. By focusing on the sign of his agnostic attitude towards the death of a loved one, how can we understand the therapeutic value of exorcising our made-up ideas of death? In this article, the author aims to describe the difficult path of reconciliation with death, by examining the internal connection between Ricoeur’s agnostic attitude and his attempt to exorcise the images of death from his mind in this posthumous work.departmental bulletin pape
The Souls and Rebirth of Children
Get PDFHow have the Japanese people thought about the whereabouts of the souls of children who died too young, or of stillborn children? Through ancient myths, Jōmon period religion and burial customs, traditional folk tales of young women wandering with “torn bags” (wombs), and the modern custom of burying the placenta, it is made clear. While the soul of the deceased child is thought to still be nearby, people would place the child’s body and placenta into a container representing the womb and bury it in the ground, in the hopes that the child’s soul would quickly reappear in the mother’s womb, restored to vitality by the power of the great mother goddess. This way of thinking is rooted in an ancient worldview dating back to the Jōmon period.departmental bulletin pape
Tsukui Yamayurien Incident and Supported-Decision Making : Community Life of People with Severe Disabilities
Get PDFAround 2:00 on July 26, 2016, 19 residents were killed and 27 people, including 3 staff members, were injured at Tsukui Yamayurien, a facility for people with intellectual disabilities in Sagamihara City. The criminal was a former employee of the facility, who in advance had given a death threat letter to the chairman of the House of Representatives and executed it almost as announced. The letter contained eugenic ideas which denied people with disabilities their right to live, and it became a big issue whether the work experience at the facility led to this way of thinking. Although it was not clarified during the trial, the way of support at the institution was debated again, as was the quality of support through keywords such as“supported decisionmaking”and empowerment, which attracted attention after the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. At the time of its reopening, Tsukui Yamayurien, aimed to help realize the lifestyle desired by the patient to decentralize into two areas, and to provide decision support for residents. When the death sentence was issued in March 2020, not only the facility but also the welfare of persons with disabilities itself was questioned, and a new study group was set up in Kanagawa Prefecture. Support from a“user's perspective”has been discussed, and efforts are being made to build local lives for residents.departmental bulletin pape
Towards a Neuropsychological and Neuroaesthetic Theory of Sandplay Therapy
Get PDFSandplay therapists and researchers have long sought for ways to explain why sandplay therapy heals. In this paper, the author first briefly reviews the history and status-quo of sandplay research from the perspective of neuroscience. Then sandplay therapy is redefined from the specific standpoints of neuropsychology and neuroaesthetics or neuroscientific study of art. Sandplay shares some characteristics with visual art in that it entails active processes of extracting components from the ever-changing real world and re-constructing it as more or less static. However, it is different from visual art in that it is multi-modal, starts with stimulating the tactile sense, thus triggering PLAY, which is one of the seven basic emotions by Panksepp. The key concepts in sandplay therapy,“mother-child unity”and were discussed in the light of neuroscience, infant research, and psychoanalysis. Sandplay as art is also related with curiosity, SEEKING, which is closely related with PLAY, and all these lead to creativity. Although therapists have been warned against seeking for beauty in art therapy, for fear that“false beauty”should compromise therapeutic effects, beauty itself may be an inherent and important part of sandplay therapy, for, the sense of beauty, according to some neuroscientific studies, is grounded in the neural network related with“reward”, and the often-felt sense of“reward”in the client-therapist relationship may be a contributing factor in the client’s psychological growth. Also, in such elderly clients as those with brain damage and cognitive and/or physical impairments, the therapist’s assisting them with making their sandtrays“look better”may uphold their diminished or traumatized sense of self and might help them achieve some “beauty”towards the end of their lives. Studying neural underpinnings of sandplay therapy with more advanced neuroimaging techniques than near-infrared spectroscopy（NIRS）may shed light on such topics as the relationship between the“reward”circuits and sandplay therapy processes. Hopefully, neuroscientists and sandplay therapists and researchers will, in future, go hand in hand to dig deep into both the brain and the inner world of sandplay therapy, to open up new possibilities to explain to the public and specialists in other fields what is going on in sandplay therapy and what really makes it therapeutic.departmental bulletin pape
Spirituality and Resilience from the Viewpoint of Clinical Thanatology
Get PDFIn this article, first the history of the establishment of the field of Clinical Thanatology in two universities in Japan is explained. This arose from Tokuji Shimoyama’s unique relationship with Viktor Frankl and his study of logotherapy under Frankl’s guidance. Shimoyama went on to translate Frankl’s bestseller Ein Psycholog erebt das Konzentrationslag (English title: Man’s Search for Meaning) into Japanese, and after retiring as a professor from Sophia University, became a professor at Toyo Eiwa University. In both universities, he began the tradition of the study of existential therapy and spiritual care.
Next, the relationship between Clinical Thanatology and spirituality and spiritual care is explained. In the last part of the 20th century, the World Health Organization (WHO) tried to change its definition of “health”. Until then, the definition of a healthy person contained only biological, psychological, and social aspects. By the end of the 20th century, however, this definition was seen as inadequate. Therefore, the addition of a spiritual aspect was suggested for the WHO’s revised definition. Though the word of “spirituality” in Japanese is not very clear, it is still important in psychiatric care. For example, people who have spiritual pain or suffer grief from an experience of loss can benefit from spiritual care.
Finally, the importance of resilience in the recovery process is discussed using the case of Dr. Mieko Kamiya, who was a psychiatrist and poet. After she contracted tuberculosis and recuperated alone, she fell into a deep depressive state and spent days of distress. At the time, she had the mysterious experience of having her whole body bathed in divine light. She had the consciousness of a great natural power in her. Her spirituality and her resilience awoke. She recovered and regained strong health through her resilience and spirituality. The example shows how spiritual care could be important in recovering from any disaster. Strong resilience was induced by spirituality. Spiritual care is important in disaster situations.departmental bulletin pape
Medicine and Religion in Modern Japan : An Institutional Backdrop of Japanese Thanatology
Get PDFWith the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in 2020, a critical interest in the current situation of the Japanese medical system has been emerging. The modern Japanese medical system had not drawn much serious criticism before this pandemic, but this event has created a suitable occasion for reflection on it. Such reflection is also a chance to clarify the institutional backdrop of thanatology in Japan.
Modernization of the medical system started in Japan in the late 19th century, and then around the beginning of the 20th century, the Japanese government attempted to readjust its medical system to improve the health of the general public. This was done through the institutionalization of the medical profession, of hospitals and other medical facilities, and of the medical education system. After WWII, the postwar rebuilding of the medical system was enabled by the government alongside the establishment of other social security systems. Around 1980, early examples of thanatological activities started in two Protestant hospitals, one in Osaka, and the other in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka. They were followed by the growth of palliative medicine nationwide from around 1990 onwards.
The current situation surrounding thanatology in Japan can be seen partly in the presence of palliative care hospitals, some of which have been established and managed by religiously-affiliated medical organizations. Some contributions by religious organizations to the field of medicine also can be seen in the establishment and management of universities that offer majors in medicine or in other related areas. In this article, a summary of activities related to thanatology in those 37 hospitals and 35 universities is presented. By knowing information of this kind, readers can further understand the institutional backdrop of Japanese thanatology.departmental bulletin pape
