著者

田頭 政三郎

出版者

神戸大学

雑誌

神戸大学医学部紀要 (ISSN:00756431)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.40, no.1, pp.73-90, 1979-05

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When I have observed the cultural circumstances of Okinawa from the viewpoint of transcultural psychiatry, I can realistically recognize a culture dominated by shamanism still subsisting within the bottom of the Okinawan culture and also acting as an emotional undercurrent of the people of Okinawa, on the one hand, and on the other, the confusion and conflict of the two different cultures which have experienced historically various cultural shocks and have been permeated by the culture of highly modernized technology especially after the end of the Second World War. In psychiatric treatment under the present cultural circumstances of Okinawa I can clearly elaborate a friction between the traditional witchcraft treatment based on shamanism and the modern psychiatric treatment. I have good reason to say that this friction has been concentrated on the attack and the condition of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia indigenous to Okinawa. For this reason, I have made direct contact with five Yuta persons (shaman) and, by referring to psychiatry, have investigated the structure of their personality, the initiation, the frame of the spiritual world believed in by Yuta persons, the witching practices, and their spiritual obstacles. I have met 88 psychiatric patients and 81 members of their families and have examined their involvement in Yuta practices and the influence of shamanism on psychiatric treatment in Okinawa. As a result, I have reached the following conclusion : 1. The domination of shamanism in the field of psychiatric treatment in Okinawa is still great. 2. In the frame of the spiritual world sustaining the witchcraft practices of Yuta persons there is a dual structure that contains the existence of various Kami (Gods) in the mythology of Japan and that of ancestral spirits. There are many points of view quite inconsistent with the theory of Mr. P. Lebra. As for their spiritual obstacles, Yuta persons assert that mental disorders take place in connection with the spirits of ancestors although they approve of the existence of mental illnesses in reality. In the local disorders of Japan mental disorders as a retribution are being attributed to possession with or Tatari (an evil spell) by the spirits of the animals such as fox and badger, or by Ikiryo (a wraith). But such practices have not been observed in the local shamanism of Okinawa. Moreover, judging from the pathogenecy of psychiatry, the cases diagnosed as schizophrenia and the analysis of the attacking condition of patients under the present cultural circumstances of Okinawa indicate that many mental patients are caused by their failure in identifying themselves with the identity crisis of the peculiar based on shamanism and the modern culture mainly represented by the U. A. S., once exposed to the crisis. The contents of the patients' delusion also disclose the reflection of their reaction to the two different cultures; the schizophrenic patients of Okinawa have been exposed to a cultural inconsistency. I have made clear the four cases mentioned above according to psychopathological mechanism.