Naikan Therapy: Art of Inculcating Gratitude in Healing

“A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner

and outer life depends on the labors of other men, living and
dead and that I must exert myself in order to give in the
measures as I have received and am still receiving.”

-Albert Einstein

Naikan therapy or Reflection is a form of psychotherapy originated from Japanese Shin

Buddhism. Naikan means “inner- looking”. This was established by Ishin Yoshimoto (1916-
1988), where he focused the practice as “self- Illumination”. Naikan therapy has got its basis
from spiritual Japanese Buddhist Practice called “mishirabe”, which means “self-examination”.
It is known as recollecting the kindness of others.

Human beings nowadays are constantly clinging towards all the problems and struggles
which are being faced by them. This constancy will lead only to a stage of both mental and
physical deterioration. Here, Naikan therapy is technique where people in need are molded to
have a conscious shift of attention to different ways in which the world supported us.

Naikan as therapy has got its first introduction into a Juvenile prison and soon spread to
other reformatories and prisons in Japan in 1954. Later Naikan was accepted as a therapy of self-
reflection in hospitals for treating patients with depression, alcoholic addictions etc.

Objective

 Gain insights into oneself and others through a comprehensive perspective rather than a
self-centered perspective one.
 Deconstruct fixed, unrealistic notions of self and other.
 Increase awareness of what others did for us.

Naikan Therapy in Practice

The Principals of Naikan Interview: “Being Modest”

Three Themes:

1. “What have others done for you?”

2. “What have you done for others in
return?”
3. “What troubles have you caused to
others?”
These questions are the foundation for understanding the reflections of others.

These three themes are repeatedly asked by a therapist.

“We know so many things but we don’t know ourselves. Go into your own ground and
learn to know yourself there”

-Meister Eckhart

Naikan Therapy in Daily Life (Nichijo Naikan)

Practice time: 20 – 30 minutes.

This is one of the simplest ways of practice where, towards the end of the day we have to find a
quiet, distraction less place and list down the answers of above mentioned three questions.
Specificity is appreciated over general answers.

Naikan Reflection on a Person

Practice time: 50 – 60 minutes

When we want to reflect our relationship with a specific person this method is adopted.

For an each hour of reflection we shall examine our relationship during a specific period of time.

It starts chronologically by beginning from the first day we met the person. They’ll be asked to
introspect deep into the thankful activities received from that person. Then also to realize deep
into the positive interactions and thoughts perceived from that individual. Most importantly the
three questions should also be focused. Relationships with parents, siblings, teachers and friends
can be examined in a similar fashion with three year period being generally applied unless the
person has been known for only a short time.

There are Naikan centers or clinical institutes which provide one week Naikan Therapy, where
the clients will be withdrawn from all social attachments and the introspection starts from early
morning and lasts till night. This is called as Intensive Naikan Therapy.

In addition to the Daily and Intensive Naikan Therapy, Psychotherapists started including
calculation exercises. This calculation exercises include questions which ask the client to
calculate. For example, if therapists wanted to make the client understand the value and duties of
his/her mother, they’ll ask to calculate “How many meals did your mother make for you”

For this, a person can first calculate on average how many meals his mother (or his primary
caretaker if it was not his mother) made for him a week when he was a particular age; then
multiply that number by 52, the number of weeks in a year, to get an approximation of how
many meals she made in total when he was that age. So if the person’s mother made 16 meals on
average for him when he was ten years old, he would multiply 16 by 52 to get 832.
He would then do this for ages eleven, twelve, and all other ages during which his mother made
him meals. Then he would add the totals for each age to get an approximation of how many
meals his mother made throughout his life.

Hence Naikan took its journey in three phases:-

1. Secularization (Rehabilitating prison inmates) 1954-1960
2. Medicalization (usage of Naikan as therapy to treat patients) from 1960 onwards
3. Internationalization (Spread of Naikan therapy from Japan to Austria, Germany)

There are research reports by psychiatrists and psychologists on how Naikan has been
used to treat a wide variety of problems, including addiction (particularly alcoholism and
gambling addiction), eating disorders, personality disorders, schizophrenia, psychosomatic
disorders, dissociative disorder, offenders, decreasing recidivism and depression. Most are based
on case studies. They all tend to give a positive assessment of Naikan, but it could be argued that
the numbers are not statistically significant to make any definitive conclusions.

“Man need only divert his attention from searching for the solution to external questions
and pose the one, true inner question of how he should lead his life, and all the external
questions will be resolved in the best possible way.”

-Anonymous

References
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Male Offenders: Changes in Perceived Social Support and Externalized Blame. Int J
Offender Ther Comp Criminol. 2018;62(11):3499–508.
3. Rossano MC. Naikan Reflection NAIKAN REFLECTION: A PATH TOWARD
GRATITUDE AND HEALING. 2006. (Thesis)
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with a family history of addiction: emphasis on guilt and forgiveness. Asian J Gambl
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5. Sengoku M, Murata H, Kawahara T, Imamura K, Nakagome K. Does daily Naikan

therapy maintain the efficacy of intensive Naikan therapy against depression? Psychiatry
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[+Exercises].https://positivepsychology.com/introspection-self-reflection/. (Accessed on
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