The Enlightened MD PhD: Confessions of an MD PhD Heretic: Naikan Therapy

“Nikon therapy?” I was thinking to myself.

Psychotherapy using photography?

I was confused!

My wife, my mother-in-law, and myself, were sitting in on an intake session at Kansai University Department of Psychosomatic Medicine.

The patient was a middle-aged taxi driver with abdominal discomfort.

The doctor first did a typical Western medical intake along with a dietary and an in-depth social history.

He then went on to do an in-depth physical exam, and an in-the-room abdominal ultrasound, no technician needed.

My wife and I were visiting her family in Japan.

I got to give a talk at Kansai University.

Due to my interest in mind-body medicine I was invited to sit in on this patient’s intake. As my wife is a nurse also with a long-term interest in mind-body medicine, she was invited as well. My mother-in-law was invited as an additional translator.

Psychosomatic medicine?

That practice had not existed in the US since the 1970’s, but now is being reconsidered as a legitimate field of medicine, recently being recognized as a psychiatric subspecialty.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/726444_2

In Japan and Germany, Departments of Psychosomatic Medicine never went away.

The doctor recommended dietary changes, supplements, no conventional medications, and Naikan Therapy. In Japan, Naikan Therapy means you spend a week or more in a hospital contemplating 3 questions:

What have I received from __________ ?

What have I given to __________ ?

What troubles and difficulties have I caused __________ ?

http://www.todoinstitute.org/naikan3.html

Dan Goleman wrote a nice review article on Naikan Therapy in 1986 for the NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/03/science/in-japan-gratitude-to-others-is-stressed-in-psychotherapy.html?pagewanted=all

I’m writing this today because of an article entitled Naikan Therapy written by Gregg Krech in this month’s Tricycle, Winter 2015.

This article started my thinking about our visit to Japan in 2008.

I am the course director for our first and second year medical student’s elective in Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Accent on the fact that this is an “elective” course. Maybe 10-30 students, of 175, take this course each year.

There is no required teaching on mind-body medicine in my medical school.

Is that crazy, or what!

Yes, I am a medical heretic.

But, ignoring mind-body medicine?

Ignoring psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology?

Yes folks, we are still in the dark ages.

There is even a Mindful Magazine.

Come on now. This is the year 2015, and there is no required course that teaches about meditation, supplements, acupuncture, yoga, or tai chi in our conventional medical school education.