self in Japanese culture

A new book on cultural psychology was recently published by Routledge.

Gordana Jovanović, Lars Allolio-Näcke, & Carl Ratner (Eds.). (2018). The Challenges of Cultural Psychology: Historical Legacies and Future Responsibilities. New York, NY: Routledge.

https://www.routledge.com/The-Challenges-of-Cultural-Psychology-Historical-Legacies-and-Future-Responsibilities/Jovanovic-Allolio-Nacke-Ratner/p/book/9781138677227

The book covers diverse aspects of cultural psychology - its historical backgrounds, present and future. I also contributed a chapter on the self in Japanese culture, attempting to go beyond the cultural dichotomy such as "Western" and "Eastern." Here is the chapter title and the abstract.

Chapter 17: The Self in Japanese Culture from an Embodied Perspective (Shogo Tanaka)

[Abstract]
The main aim of this paper is to consider the self in Japanese culture from an embodied perspective. Since early 1990’s, the discourses on the embodied mind have brought a radical change in the sciences of mind, including the notion of the self. In the following argument, first, I briefly describe the basic aspects of the embodied self, the notion of which was derived from the embodied mind paradigm. Then, I examine the discourse on the self in cross-cultural psychology that focuses on the differences in the self between the West and East, including Japanese culture. In the extant literature, it is widely acknowledged that the self in Eastern (or more widely, non-Western) cultures has the characteristics of being “interdependent” and “collective” in comparison with that in Western cultures. In addition to this, the self in Japanese culture has been described as “relationship dependent.” Finally, I give an account of the same characteristics from an embodied perspective in order to find a path to an understanding of the self beyond cultural dichotomies, such as “Western” and “Eastern.” If the self is inevitably embodied, such a self could be constituted as either “individual” or “collective,” “independent” or “interdependent,” regardless of the cultural background.


If you are interested in reading it, please let me know. My chapter may be of interest for those who hope to understand the connection between cultural issues and the embodied self.

Regards,
S

Bodily Basis of the Diverse Modes of the Self

My new paper on embodiment is published in Human Arenas, a new journal from Springer. You can follow the link and download the PDF for free. Enjoy it!

Tanaka, S. (2018). Bodily basis of the diverse modes of the self. Human Arenas, 1, 223-230.

Here is the abstract;
Bodily experiences encompass and underpin all types of experiences of the mind, ranging from pre-reflective to self-reflective, from subjective to intersubjective, and from collectivistic to individualistic. Moreover, the self is shaped into diverse modes of being as a result of different focuses on bodily experiences. This paper describes the experiences of one’s body-as-subject, one’s body-as-object for oneself, and one’s body-as-object for others, as they relate with the self. After theoretical considerations, we take up the experience of wearing clothes as a concrete example. The author’s personal experiences adequately show that clothes portray the complexity and dynamism of the self in its relation to the body.

Although it still remains at the initial stage, I attempted to describe my personal experience of clothing in the last section. Please let me know your ideas if you are interested in developing the "phenomenology of clothing" together. It would be fun!

S

New paper on Depersonalization

Recently my new paper on depersonalization was published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies.

Tanaka, S. (2018). What is it Like to Be Disconnected from the Body?: A Phenomenological Account of Disembodiment in Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 25, 239-262.

As you can see on the title, I tackled the subjective feeling of disembodiment, which is one of the major symptoms in depersonalization disorder. Here is the abstract: 

So long as I maintain the ordinary modes of experience such as walking or eating, the body appears to me as something inseparable from myself. Through and with the body I act in the world, and through and from the body I perceive the world. However, this is not the case in the pathological condition known as depersonalization/ derealization disorder (DD). People with DD frequently claim that their self is disconnected from the body and their bodily actions feel like those of a robot. This symptom raises an important question about the paradigm of the embodied self, which is whether the union of body and self is contingent or not. In this paper, I describe the split between the self and body experienced in DD, then compare it with experiences of the full-body illusion, in which the self is perceived to be located out of the physical body. Through this comparison, it is made clear that the self in DD is not totally disembodied even though the basic sense of self has gone through a qualitative change.

In the paper, I claimed that the self in depersonalization is not totally disembodied in terms of motor agency. I hope this finding would be a hint for the future development of effective therapy...

S

lectures in Taiwan

I am in Taiwan to give lectures on phenomenological psychology. Dr. Wei-Lun Lee of National Dong Hwa University is the main collaborator this time. He and I are trying to develop a circle of researchers and students who are interested in phenomenology-based research in clinical psychology and other related fields such as psychiatry, education, nursing, and so on.

Yesterday I gave a lecture at the department of psychology in National Taiwan University. My talk was titled "Reconsidering the symptoms of Taijin Kyofusho from an embodied perspective."
http://www.psy.ntu.edu.tw/index.php/eng/events/1805-1070503e

And today I gave another lecture at the department of counselling and clinical psychology in National Dong Hwa University. Today’s talk was titled “The lived body and motor learning: Refining the Merleau-Ponty’s notion of body schema.”

With the aid of the local organizers including Dr. Yaw-Sheng Lin, Dr. Shyh-Heng Wong and Dr. Rong-Bang Peng, I could have a very vibrant discussion with all the students. Many thanks to all of you!

S

many thanks.

Thanks to all the participants, two-day symposium on Body Schema and Body Image went very well. Though I closed the independent page, but here I leave the same information as a log. My special thanks go to Yochai Ataria, Shaun Gallagher, Shu Imaizumi, Shintaro Omagari, and Ziyan Huang, who made possible to organize this event successfully.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Symposium: Body schema and body image
March 24-25, 2018
The University of Tokyo (Komaba Campus), Japan
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online Registration: https://goo.gl/forms/650de8h9h0A7LgPe2

The distinction between body image and body schema is a long-standing as well as a modern issue in diverse research fields related to embodiment. Looking back at its history, the concept of body schema was first introduced to neurology in the early 20th century (e.g., Head & Holmes, 1911). Diverse disturbances in sensory-motor activities resulting from neural and brain lesions were successfully described by using this concept. Phantom limbs, asomatognosia, apraxia and other symptoms have been explicated in terms of body schema. It also developed as a psychological concept related to wider problems such as schizophrenia, anorexia, depersonalization, and body dysmorphic disorder among others (e.g., Schilder, 1935). Both ideas are rich in their potential to explicate diverse phenomena in neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, cognitive science, sports science and other related fields.

However, several books and papers (e.g., Gallagher, 2005; de Preester & Knockaert, 2005; de Vignemont, 2010) have indicated that the lack of theoretical distinction between body schema and body image has resulted in conceptual confusion in research. Ian Waterman’s unique story of deafferentation was one of the cases that gave us an opportunity to consider this issue along with a concrete phenomenon. Although body schema and body image have become one of the most frequently used concepts in interdisciplinary research on embodiment, there still remains many questions including;

• Is this distinction based on differences between conscious access (body image) and unconscious organization (body schema)?
• Is the distinction based on differences between perception (body image) and movement (body schema)? 
• Are there other factors that facilitate clear distinctions? 
• Is the distinction theoretical rather than empirical? Or vice versa?
• If the distinction is theoretical, how would it be related to the concrete phenomenon of embodiment? And if it is empirical, how far can it be elaborated theoretically?

Whatever the answers might be, we believe that it is important to reconsider the distinction between body schema and body image within the context of the concrete phenomena of embodiment. In this symposium, we welcome papers that address questions relevant to the above-mentioned questions and will try to explicate a concrete phenomenon based on the notion of body schema or body image, as well as attempt to newly expand concepts regarding body representation including body schema and body image. Moreover, after the symposium, well-prepared presentations will be published as book chapters edited by the organizers of the conference.
　
[Keynote Address]
Shaun Gallagher (University of Memphis):
Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence at the University of Memphis. His areas of research include phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, especially topics related to embodiment, self, agency and intersubjectivity, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of time. His recent publications include Enactivist Interventions: Rethinking the Mind. (Oxford University Press, 2017) and many other articles.
　
[Program - March 24th (Saturday)]
Gathering 09:30-10:00
Introduction 10:00-10:15
Session 1
(10:15-11:00) Andreas Kalckert (University of Reading Malaysia) "Das Körpergefühl" (The body feeling): The experience of the body in German neurology of the early 20th century"
(11:00-11:45) Katsunori Miyahara (Harvard University/The University of Tokyo) "Pain asymbolia and the sense of body-identification"
Coffee
Session 2
(12:00-12:45) Shu Imaizumi (The University of Tokyo) "Integration of prosthetic and phantom limbs into body schema"
(12:45-13:30) Vinaya E H and Megha Sanyal (Indian Institute of Technology) "Problems in body representation: Understanding Anorexia Nervosa through the forward model"
Lunch
Lecture 1
(14:30-15:45) Yochai Ataria (Tel-Hei College/The Open University) "Body disownership in complex post-traumatic stress disorder"
Coffee
Session 3
(16:00-16:45) Michiko Miyazaki (Otsuma Women's University) "The development of body representation in young children"
(16:45-17:30) Tomohisa Asai (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International - ATR) "Beyond body-schema/-image dichotomy: The functional hierarchy for the unified self-representation"
Dinner 19:00-21:00

[Program - March 25th (Sunday)]
Keynote Address (Online Lecture)
(10:00-11:15) Shaun Gallagher (University of Memphis) "Reimagining the body image"
Coffee
Lecture 2
(11:30-12:45) Shogo Tanaka (Tokai University) "Body schema and body image in motor learning: Refining Merleau-Pontian notion of body schema"
Lunch
Session 4
(13:45-14:30) Kentaro Hiromitsu (Chuo University) "The triadic taxonomy of the body representation: Evidence from the brain-damaged patients with bodily disorders and the experimental study of bodily illusions"
(14:30-15:15) Noriaki Kanayama (Hiroshima University) "Body in retinotopy and somatotopy"
(15:15-16:00) Thomas Tajo and Daniel Kish (Visioneers) "FlashSonar or Echolocation education: Expanding the function of hearing and changing the meaning of blindness"
Coffee
Session 5
(16:15-17:00) Wei-Lun Lee (National Dong Hwa University) "The bodily experience of chi: A phenomenological investigation"
(17:00-17:45) Jen Learn (Western Michigan University) "The queer nature of embodiment (and the embodied nature of the queer): Psychology, sex, and the bodily ego"
Summary 17:45-18:00

[Organizers]
Yochai Ataria, Ph. D. (yochai.ataria[a]gmail.com)
Shogo Tanaka, Ph. D. (shg.tanaka[a]gmail.com)

[Venue]
The University of Tokyo, Komaba I Campus,
Building 2, Room 308 (3rd floor)
Access: http://www.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/eng_site/info/about/visitors/maps-directions/
Map: http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/content/400020146.pdf
　

• [Call for Papers]
• [Program & Abstracts]
• [Flyer]

symposium page updated

I added the program of the symposium in March on the independent page.

International Symposium: Body schema and Body image
March 24-25, 2018
The University of Tokyo (Komaba Campus), Japan
https://embodiedknowledge.blogspot.jp/p/symposium.html

Thanks to all of you, we received a large number of abstracts for the symposium. You can find many interesting topics on the program, covering from neuroscience to cultural studies. Please participate in our two-day symposium in Tokyo.

See you soon!