Anatomia dependenței

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   Japanese has a word for letting yourself be cared for without shame, and the absence of that word from Western languages has made a child's dependence read as a stage to outgrow rather than a capacity to keep.

   Anatomia dependenței · 1971

   Dependence satisfied early produces autonomy later.

   Doi was a psychiatrist who noticed, working with patients in the United States, that a word was missing. Amae names the gesture of a child leaning on a parent knowing they will be received, and by extension the whole network of accepted dependencies binding a Japanese person to their family, colleagues and boss. It is not weakness and not manipulation: it is the presumption of trust. His argument is that a culture possessing this word treats dependence differently — the traditional Japanese mother slept with the child, carried them, answered before they asked, and separation was postponed rather than hurried. The contrast with the Western ideal of early independence, with a separate room from birth and sleep training, is striking. The irony is that Western attachment literature arrived experimentally very close to amae: dependence satisfied early produces autonomy later. The reverse, which Doi himself discusses, is that a culture of accepted dependence can also produce difficulty in saying no, and hikikomori, the prolonged social withdrawal of some young Japanese, is read by some as a pathology of exactly this pole.

   “Amae is the feeling of pleasant dependence upon another person, the wish to presume upon their goodwill.”

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