Seeking double personality: Nakamura Kokyō's work in abnormal psychology in early 20th-century Japan.
Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences October 1, 2020 Yu-Chuan Wu 3 citations
Nakamura Kokyō studied a woman with a split personality who lived as his maid from 1917 until her death in 1940, serving as his muse and assistant in promoting abnormal psychology. Multiple personality was central to Nakamura's theory of the subconscious, based on dissociation. It also became a flashpoint in his disputes with religious groups, who invoked Western psychical research to modernize their doctrines of spirit possession. Nakamura distinguished his psychological view from spiritual understandings by emphasizing individual memories—especially traumatic ones—and hysteria. His views on memory and hysteria conflicted with both academic mainstream and cultural beliefs, which may partly explain the limited success of his campaigns.