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We theorize to make sense and to create order.
This article attempts to integrate two disparate, yet related, psychoanalytic notions: the first, amae, a Japanese concept depicting a culturally specific kind of mother–child bond; and second, the Mother-Group, a Western concept lodged in the field of group psychology, wherein the group entity is perceived in a maternal vein.
The overall theme fits in well with the contemporary psychoanalytic preoccupation with the early mother–child relationship as a major contributor to personality development (Bowlby, 1982; Pine, 1985; Stern, 1995; Winnicott, 1965). It also belongs in the recent sphere of the “increasing psychoanalytic diversity … a pluralism of theoretical perspectives … of distinctive regional, cultural and language emphasis” (Wallerstein, 1988, p. 5).
Although amae(wishing to be loved) is an everyday Japanese term, its theoretical study began with Takeo Doi's observations in the 1950s that it also constituted an important psychological phenomenon that bridges the emotional states of dependency and attachment. He noted, furthermore, that it originated with the infant's yearning for his mother, that is, “the baby's Amaeruing, when it begins to recognize the mother and seek her” (Doi, 1989, 1992). Amae is also operative in adult interpersonal relationships, appearing as a wished-for emotional closeness to another. Although rooted in the context of being sweet and desirable, such frustrated efforts to be loved may result in reactive anger, that is, “narcissistic hurt.” Especially noteworthy here is the uniquely Japanese and amorphous character of this phenomenon, coupled with the fact that it refers primarily to a nonverbal communication of feelings.