Abstract
Psychotherapy as a form of persuasion must satisfy two general conditions to achieve its efficacy. First, its repertoire of messages, whether in diagnosis or treatment, must be embedded in the culture of its client so that it can tap his memory stored through enculturation. Second, the therapeutic messages, while they should thus sound familiar, also need to offer something novel or even stunning to arouse their receiver’s curiosity and to capture his imagination. One way of combining these two prerequisites is to single out, simplify, elaborate, or exaggerate a segment of the total cultural fund. Most of the religious cults in Japan, which are known for their claimed records of healing and deliverance of sufferers, utilize this method. This paper focuses on one of these cults and analyzes the experiences of its members with reference to their “self-reconstruction”.
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© 1982 D. Reidel Publishing Company
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Lebra, T.S. (1982). Self-Reconstruction in Japanese Religious Psychotherapy. In: Marsella, A.J., White, G.M. (eds) Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9220-3_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9220-3_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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