The 44th Keio Symposium on Bridging Humanities, Social Sciences and Medicine: Psychotherapy and Culture: Argentina/Japan

04/24/2025

Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2025, 12:20–2:20 PM

Venue: G-Lab, East Research Building, Keio University Mita Campus (Campus Map < https://www.keio.ac.jp/ja/maps/mita.html > [13])

Languages: English and Japanese

Registration: Please register by approximately 9:00 PM on May 27 via this link < 5/28 The 44th Keio Symposium registration >

Abstract: In this symposium, we will welcome anthropologist Sean Brotherton and clinical psychologist/medical anthropologist Kaito Tohata. They will lecture on how the practice of psychotherapy, particularly psychoanalysis, connects the inner lives of individuals with social and political contexts. We will deepen the discussion from multiple perspectives, exploring how psychoanalysis has engaged with and been adapted to social inequality, class, and systems of care, and how psychotherapeutic support is practiced in Argentina and Japan.

Presentation 1

Sean Brotherton:

(Re)Thinking Psychic Life: Psychoanalytic Grammars for Well-Being in Buenos Aires

Presentation 2

Kaito Tohata:

Psychoanalysis and Japanese Society: A Consideration of Class

Speakers:

Sean Brotherton

Dr. P. Sean Brotherton is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at New York University. He is a cultural

anthropologist who studies and theorizes health, medicine, the state, subjectivity, and psychoanalysis. Brotherton’s research intervenes in debates of medical anthropology, the anthropology of the body,

and Latin American and Caribbean studies. Across his work, he asks: What constitutes health or well-

being, or the notion of a healthy subject, to whom does it matter, and why?

Kaito Tohata

Born in 1983. His specializations are clinical psychology, psychoanalysis, and medical anthropology. He graduated from the Faculty of Education at Kyoto University and completed the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University. He is a licensed clinical psychologist, a certified public psychologist, and holds a PhD in Education. After working at a psychiatric clinic and teaching as an associate professor at Jumonji University, he now directs the Shirokane Takanawa Counseling Room. His publications include "The Doctor in the Field Laughs: What Is Mental Healing?" (Seishin Shobo, 2015), "Ordinary Psychotherapy in Japan: Psychology and Medical Anthropology for Local Daily Clinical Practice" (Seishin Shobo, 2017), "It's Hard to Be Here: A Memorandum on Care and Therapy" (Igaku-Shoin, 2019), "Where Did the Mind Go?" (Bungeishunju, 2021), "On a Night When Anything Can Be Found, Only the Heart Cannot" (Shinchosha, 2022), "The Art of Listening, The Art of Being Heard" (Chikuma Shinsho, 2022), "Ordinary Consultation" (Kongo Shuppan, 2023), and "Psychology for a Rainy Day: When Mental Care Begins" (KADOKAWA, 2024). In 2019, he won the 19th Osaragi Jiro Rondan Award and the Kinokuniya Jinbun Taisho (Grand Prize for Humanities) 2020 for "It's Hard to Be Here."

Contact: Junko Kitanaka ( junko.kitanaka@keio.jp < mailto:junko.kitanaka@keio.jp > )

Contact: Junko Kitanaka ( junko.kitanaka@keio.jp < mailto:junko.kitanaka@keio.jp > )

This research is supported by the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research JP21H05174.