Haruki Murakami’s short story forms a world that is strange but has a dream-like consistency. In this lecture and seminar series, I would like to apply the method of understanding dreams internally to Murakami’s short stories, and focus particularly on the motif of encounters within them. In contrast to the lack of encounters in his early works, which were characterized as “detachment“, in his more recent short stories, encounters do come to pass, and I would like to consider this in light of encounters in psychotherapy. The main works to be featured are short stories in the ”First person singular“. Following lecture, the seminar will focus on clinical discussion.

Toshio Kawai, Ph.D., is a professor at the Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University. He is also a Jungian analyst. He was educated in clinical psychology at Kyoto University and in philosophical psychology at Zurich University where he received a Ph.D. in 1987. He obtained his diploma from the C.G. Jung Institute Zurich in 1990. He has published articles and book chapters in English, German, and Japanese. His papers “Postmodern Consciousness in Psychotherapy”(2006) , “Union and Separation in the Therapy of Pervasive Developmental Disorders and ADHD” (2009), and “The Red Book from a Premodern Perspective” were published in the Journal of Analytical Psychology. His article, “The 2011 Earthquake in Japan: Psychotherapeutic Interventions and Change of Worldview” was published in Spring Journal’s latest issue, Environmental Disasters and Collective Trauma (Winter 2012). He has also contributed the following book chapters: “The experience of the numinous today: From the novels of Haruki Murakami,” in The Idea of the Numinous, edited by Ann Casement and David Tacey; “Postmodern consciousness in the novels of Haruki Murakami,” in The Cultural Complex, edited by Thomas Singer and Samuel L. Kimbles; “Jung in the Japanese Academy,” in Who Owns Jung? edited by Ann Casement; and, “Jungian Psychology in Japan: Between mythological world and contemporary consciousness,” Cultures and Identities in Transition, edited by Murray Stein and Raya A. Jones.