Shūzō Kure’s essay on psychotherapy including music in twentieth-century Japan (1916)

Abstract

This study offers a historical introduction to psychiatry and music therapy in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, followed by English translations of related excerpts from Shūzō Kure’s Psychotherapy (1916). Music was used as preventive healthcare during the Edo period (1603–1867). This continued into the Meiji period (1868–1912), when European music was also employed by psychiatrists alongside traditional Japanese songs. Kure (1865–1932) is known as the father of Japanese psychiatry and his work best illustrates the links between music and psychiatry in Japan at the turn of the century, showing the integration of European and Japanese theories and practices.