Oedipal Ties and the Issue of Separation-Individuation in Traditional Confucian Societies

The American Academy of Psychoanalysis and the American Psychoanalytic Association, through separate and combined colloquia, have focused attention on the Confucian societies (China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam), especially those aspects that can be defined as psycho-cultural. The timing is most appropriate. Not only are Asian-Americans increasingly entering psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, but we can assume that they will constitute a much greater proportion of the therapeutic population in the future.

Psychoanalysis is a reciprocal process between patient and therapist. As they learn from us, we learn from them. Not only do we learn about their origins and their unique personae, but, if they come from a culture that is radically different from our own, we must be instructed into the nature of that culture and the conditions that it establishes. Often, therefore, we must go beyond our patient/teachers because no one person experiences the totality of a culture, and much of what any person absorbs may not be transmitted, or in fact transmittable, including data that may be very relevant to the analysis. This particularly applies to Confucian societies. Although it is true, as Harry Stack Sullivan so frequently emphasized, that we are all human and more alike than not, his reference was to the intrapsychic, not the cultural. It is crucial that we be aware of those cultural differences that are psychologically significant, if we are to avoid stumbling into areas taken for granted in dealing with patients from a Western culture that might arouse considerable anxiety, unanticipated by the therapist, in someone from an East Asian culture. The separation-individuation