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Nearly 30 years ago my friend Paul Williams stayed with us at our summer cottage located in Fujimi Town between the Yatsugatake Mountains and the South Alps in Nagano Prefecture. Being the pioneer of Rock-’n’-Roll criticism and the original literary executor of the Philip K. Dick estate, Paul shared many interests with me.  Thus, we attended a Sunday mass together at Fujimi Catholic Church, when I introduced him to Dr. Takeo DOI, professor emeritus of the Department of Neuropsychology at the University of Tokyo, whose summer cottage is also located in the same town. At that point, something wonderful happened. Paul enthusiastically hugged the old psychoanalyst and stated: ”You have long been my hero, and your book The Anatomy of Dependence has invariably been my bible.”　This is the most symbolic encounter between a rigorously theoretical academician who gave impacts upon American Japanologists in the 1970s and a typical counter-cultural hippie who had accepted Japanese culture in the heyday of Japan’s High Growth period.

The Anatomy of Dependence (tr. John Bester, Kodansha International, 1973) is the English edition of Dr. Doi’s bestseller Amae no Kozo (1971). Since the publication of this English edition so many critics have pointed out the radical difference between “Amae” and “Dependence.” What matters here is that it is difficult to translate into English the Japanese concept of “Amae,” for “Amae” refers to the complicated sensibility peculiar to Japanese people. The concepts of dependence, indulgence and attachment are not enough. As Dr. Doi pointed out, the concept of “Amae” is indigenous to Japan; it is a key to clarifying Japan’s postwar success.

Therefore, it is my great honor to be able to introduce to you my old friend Dr. Kazuko Behrens, current professor of State University of New York Polytechnic Institute located in Utica, upstate New York, for her monograph based upon her Ph.D.dissertation entitled “Intergenerational Transmission of Attachment in Japan: Concordance found between Japanese mothers and their 6-year-olds” (Lambert, 2005) includes a radical but constructive critique of “Amae” theory.  She also serves as Coordinator of the Psychology Program, and Chair of the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences of SUNY POLY.

I first met Dr. Kazuko Behrens at Cornell University just 40 years ago, when I was studying American Literature and Critical Theory, while she was studying cultural anthropology, with special emphasis on Jizo statues. I’m not sure if you are familiar with Jizo statues nicknamed “Ojizo-san.” While walking in Japan, you are likely to spot small stone statues shaped like Buddha. This term “Jizo,” if literally translated into English, means the “womb of the earth.” Jizo are originally made in the image of Jizo Bosatsu, guardian deity of children and travelers having a spiritual power for protection and longevity that predates Buddhist beliefs.  I still remember Dr. Behrens talking about the pleasure of studying Jizo hilariously whenever we got together.

After completing her M.A. thesis on Jizo at Cornell University, she started working in the field of finance. Licensed in selling different financial products, she was a Financial Planner for American Express for a while. However, at a certain point she changed her mind and came back to academia, such as Stanford University, San Francisco State University and finally University of California, Berkeley, where she studied developmental psychology and received Ph.D. Since then she has long examined the Japanese indigenous concept of “Amae” as originally investigated by Dr. Takeo Doi in his major work Amae no Kozo (1971) mentioned above. The concept of Amae is the key for “understanding not only of the psychological makeup of the individual Japanese but of the structure of Japanese society as a whole”. Classical amae is a childlike behavior to obtain care that might include whining, behaving in a spoiled manner or taking liberties with others.　The English edition of  this book The Anatomy of Dependence（1973） also became a bestseller in the United States. However, what matters most is that the concept of “amae” is different from that of dependence.” Noting this point, Dr. Behrens analyzes the similarities and differences between “amae” and “attachment” and explains the Japanese parent-child relationships.

 According to Dr. Behrens, this concept of amae has provoked interest from scholars across disciplines. Many have provided their own version of defining amae without much attempt to synthesize it into a demonstrative definition. Non-Japanese scholars have attempted to understand the concept through their own interpretations, which have often led to confusions and erroneous conclusions. Developing Doi’s theory, Dr. Behrens states in one of her BBC interviews in 2019: “When you attend to a child every time [they cry], they will become secure, autonomous and more independent. … But neglected ones, who cry themselves to sleep, they don’t know when their needs will be met, so they have less confidence and become more needy”(https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191212-japans-deep-connection-to-childish-relationships).  She assumes that it is the child experience of amae that will give tremendous impacts upon their adulthood.

The year of 2026 sees the 250^th (semiquincentennial) anniversary of the signing the Declaration of Independence. It is this historical document that inspired our founder Fukuzawa Yukichi sensei to come up with the idea of “Dokuritsu Jison” (moral independence and self-reliance). By the same token, however, we cannot forget the paradox that without the indigenous concept of “Amae” originally translated as “dependence” Japanese nation could not have achieved its cultural independence.