An American-Japanese transcultural psychoanalysis and the issue of teacher transference

In this paper I have presented the narrative of my own didactic analysis, involving the interchange between an analysand from a Japanese background and an analyst from an American background. As I reflected on my own experience, I discovered what I have called the "teacher transference" as a significant dynamic process within this transcultural analysis. I would like to propose that this teacher transference may be an issue deserving attention in other psychoanalytic relationships and to advance the idea that, in a transcultural analysis, the analyst is not necessarily a stranger. Overall, I hope this paper will contribute to transcultural psychoanalytic theory and to a nonmonolithic understanding of the Japanese and Japanese culture.