※ 1981년 5월에 필리핀 마닐라에서 있었던 제2회 아시아태평양정신치료학회(Asia Pacific Congress of Psychotherapy)에서 발표하였고, 1998년 중국 베이징에서 개최된 제2회 범아시아태평양정신건강회의(Pan-Asia Pacific Conference on Mental Health)의 plenary lecture에서 발표하였던 논문입니다. 정신치료(Psychotherapy, 1권 1호, 1984년) pp. 41-46에 수록되어 있습니다.


Assimilation of Western Psychotherapy in Asia
- The Korean Case -

Dong-Shick Rhee, M.D.
Dongbook Neuropsychiatric Clinic, Seoul.


Since the introduction of Western Psychotherapy to Asia, especially that of Western psychoanalysis, the idea has been prevalent that Western psychoanalytic principle, theory and technique can not be applied to Asian patients. This has been the case in India, Japan and many other countries in Asia. The initial enthusiasm for psychoanalysis started with the American military occupation of South Korea in 1945. This enthusiasm grew during Korean War, which necessitated the cooperation of U.S. military psychiatrists and Korean Army psychiatrists. It came to a peak about 1957 when those psychiatrists who were trained by both Korean and American psychiatrists during Korean War and went to U.S. for further training after their discharge from the Army, began returning home. In the course of their psychotherapeutic practice 1956 to 1970, those American-trained psychiatrists in Korea started to complain about the difficulty or impossibility of applying Western psychoanalysis and psychotherapy to Korean patients. Korean culture and personality were blamed. In this paper I will describe the process of assimilation Western psychotherapy in Korea chronologically and thematically, so that one can see how the difficulties were overcome and solved. This will also show how the difficulties other Asian therapists encountered can be solved.