[Morita therapy in a form of outpatient psychotherapy: its theory and technique].

Beggining in the 1990s, Morita therapy has shifted its principal setting of practice to outpatient format to accommodate the changing needs of the era. Morita therapy has shifted its "Fumon" (strategic inattention) stance to "attending to", and evolved into more dialogue-based psychotherapy. At the same time, much attention has been paid to examine its treatment process, therapist-client relationship, and intervention techniques. The characteristic features of the principles of human understanding in Morita therapy reside in its unique angle to understand phenomena from relations, conceptualize our experiences from dynamism between fear of death and desire for life, and situate Eastern view of nature as its foundation. In accordance with the Moritian view of nature, the author conceptualizes self as a product of continuous relationship between self-consciousness, body, and internal nature. The author also conceptualizes a state in which we find ourselves in suffering as resulting from inflated self-consciousness, puniness of body and internal nature, or broken harmony amongst them. The fundamental principle of Moritian therapeutic interventions is to "trim" such inflated self-consciousness (Should-/Ought-to Thinking), while "inflating" body and internal nature (emotion, desire) by facilitating patients' behavioral engagement in their day-to-day life world. Concretely speaking, there are two intervention methods. One is to intervene by "trimming" to facilitate acceptance (and not to make value judgment on self-experience, and to give up futile attempt to control affective experience). The other is to intervene by "inflating" to facilitate changes in behavior (and to experience day-to-day life world directly). Morita therapists intervene by integrative use of these two approaches. Treatment process of the outpatient Morita therapy can be divided into two stages. The first stage revolves around intervention of symptoms and fosters patients to experience the "fluidity" of their symptoms. The next stage revolves around self and fosters patients to accept themselves in reality as they are and to make the most of him/herself. The goal of Morita therapy is to achieve such state of "Arugamama" (being "as-is").