Japanese Novelist Yukio Mishima, who committed ritual suicide in 1970, was amazed when he first learned how many American intellectuals and artists go to psychoanalysts. "Would it not be more proper," he wrote, "for the psychoanalysts to consult the artists instead?" In Japan it is not just creative people who avoid the couch. Everybody does. Tokyo, with a population of 11 million, has only three psychoanalysts in private practice. New York City (pop. 9 million) has nearly 1,000.
Seriously disturbed patients in Japanese mental hospitals generally receive similar kinds of treatment to those offered in the U.S. But the 3,000 Japanese who...
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