Takeo Doi

This article is about psychoanalyst. For aircraft designer, see Takeo Doi (aircraft designer).

Takeo Doi (土居健郎, Doi Takeo) (1920 - July 5, 2009) was a Japanese psychoanalyst known for his influential explanation of contemporary Japanese society in the work The Anatomy of Dependence, published in 1971, which focused extensively on the cause and effects of the Japanese cultural behavior, amae. The Anatomy of Dependence was described by Ezra Vogel as "the first book by a Japanese trained in psychiatry to have an impact on Western psychiatric thinking."

Born in Toyko, Japan in 1920, Doi was a graduate of the University of Tokyo. He taught there from 1971 to 1980 and then at the International Christian University in Toyko from 1980 to 1982.

In 1986, Takeo Doi published a further book, The Anatomy of Self, that expanded on his previous analysis of the concept of amae by a deeper examination of the distinctions between honne and tatemae (inner feelings and public display); uchi (home) and soto (outside); and omote (front) and ura (rear) and suggests that these constructs are important for understanding the Japanese psyche as well as Japanese society.

Selected works

• The Anatomy of Dependence, 1971.
• The Psychological World of Natsume Soseki, Harvard University Press, 1976, ISBN 978-0-674-72116-6
• The Anatomy of Self, 1986.

References

• Dale, Peter N. 1986. The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness Oxford, London. Nissan Institute, Croom Helm.pp. 116-175