International Journal of Group Psychotherapy

ISSN: 0020-7284 (Print) 1943-2836 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujgp20

Rashomon Revisited: A Re-analysis of the Film and

Implications for Mass Psychology
Howard D. Kibel M.D., CGP, DFAGPA
To cite this article: Howard D. Kibel M.D., CGP, DFAGPA (2016) Rashomon Revisited: A Reanalysis of the Film and Implications for Mass Psychology, International Journal of Group
Psychotherapy, 66:1, 75-101
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207284.2015.1089688

Published online: 14 Dec 2015.

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Date: 06 August 2016, At: 09:08

International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 66: 75101, 2016

Copyright The American Group Psychotherapy Association, Inc.
ISSN: 0020-7284 print/1943-2836 online
DOI: 10.1080/00207284.2015.1089688

Rashomon Revisited: A Re-analysis of the

Film and Implications for Mass Psychology

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HOWARD D. KIBEL, M.D., CGP, DFAGPA

ABSTRACT

The author notes that the title of the film has been used to identify a social-psychological
concept that has been widely applied in the literature. The author gives a synopsis of the
film. In order to debunk the standard interpretation of the film and provide a new one,
the author places the making of the film in an historical context. This requires an
explication of the absorption of the samurai into modernized Japan and the countrys
history before, during, and immediately after World War II. The perception of the
Emperor as a deity and his de-deification are central to understanding the culture and
the problem of managing aggression in that society. The social structure of the society
can be described as massification. The effects of these sociocultural issues on psychotherapy in Japan are discussed along with the implications for group psychotherapy.

n 1950, the Japanese filmmaker and director Akira Kurosawa

released Rashomon. The film has become a classic, and its title has
been incorporated into the English lexicon. The Rashomon effect
(Wikipedia, 2011) has been defined as the consequence of subjectivity
in observation and recollection whereby observers of an event can
produce substantially different but seemingly plausible accounts of
Howard D. Kibel is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York Medical College, Valhalla, New
York, and an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell
University, White Plains, New York.

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the same occurrence. It has been applied widely, for example, to the
study of psychiatric diagnosis (Spitz et al., 1982), individual psychotherapy (Mintz et al., 1973), group psychotherapy (Bernard,
1990), psychiatric testimony (Perr, 1975), the delivery of mental
health services (Chandler, 1992), and measures of medical care
(Chin & Muramatsu, 2003). Yet, the classic reference to this idea of
contradictory truths comes from anthropology and the work of the
ethnographers (Heider, 1988).
The film is set in 12th-century Japan and concerns a fatal encounter in
a forest between a bandit and a samurai who is traveling though the
region with his wife. At the inquest of the samurais death and afterwards, four different accounts of the events are presented, each seemingly believable yet contradictory to one another. Herein lies the
mystery of the film and the use of the title in a host of scientific inquiries.
However, examination of the film shows that each account is self-serving
of its narrator and intended to enhance the tellers ostensible noble
nature. Looking deeper at the symbolism of the setting and the characters in the film, one can infer that the film reflects the historical
context in which it was created, namely, the aftermath of World War
II and its consequences for the Japanese psyche. Through that, a deeper
meaning of the film to its Japanese audience can be elucidated.
A comprehensive understanding of the subject also requires an
explication of Japans preceding history whereby a homogenous society
was modeled into a mass. Relevant here are not only the process of
massification as introduced by Hopper (2003), but also the concept of
identification with a leader (Emperor), as formulated by Freud (1921).
This article will discuss the social system of Japan as a prelude to
noting its implications for conducting psychotherapy there. The material can be extrapolated to understand how certain traumatic events
can affect group psychotherapy. That is relevant given that social
traumas impinge upon treatment. Then, aspects of group psychology
will be discussed, particularly that of mass psychology.
THE STORY IN THE FILM

The opening scene shows a dilapidated city gate during a pouring rain.
A Priest and a Woodcutter are sitting in the gate, sheltered from the

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rain. They express incredulity over some events that had recently
transpired. Along comes a Commoner who, while also seeking shelter
from the storm, asks what the two are baffled about. From this, the story
unfolds of a samurai and his wife who were traveling through the forest
where they were accosted by a notorious bandit. The bandit somehow
overcomes the samurai and ties him to a tree stump. He then makes
love to the wife while the samurai looks on. Afterwards, the samurai
dies. His death becomes the subject of the criminal inquiry.
The Priest and the Woodcutter (apparently a skilled tradesman),
who found the body, were at the inquest and, in response to the
queries from the Commoner, tell what happened there. Three stories
unfold, that of the bandit, that of the wife, and that of the dead
samurai who speaks through a medium. These stories at the inquest
are told retrospectively.
The bandits depiction of the sexual assault shows the wife not only
succumbing to his efforts, but seemingly caught up in the pleasure of
the sexual encounter. At the inquest, he admits to having killed the
samurai. He describes with uncouth bravado that, after freeing the
samurai from bondage, they dueled with swords. He brags about the
skill of the samurai and his own victory.
In contrast, the wife claims to have murdered her husband with a
jeweled dagger that she had carried. According to her, she was
shamed by the rape and could not tolerate knowing that two men,
the bandit and her husband, knew of her dishonor. She asked them to
duel and pledged to go with the victor. However, the bandit fled. She
claims to have been the one who cut the ropes that bound her
husband, in contradiction to the narrative of the bandit. Then she
asked him to kill her with her own dagger. When he refused, she
pointed it at him and fainted. When she awoke, she found her jeweled
dagger in his chest. Apparently, she had killed him.
The medium testifying as the samurai claims that after his wife had
given herself to the bandit, she could no longer live with her husband.
After the bandit rejected her, she ran off and shortly so did he. But the
bandit returned some hours later and freed the samurai. The samurai
was grief-stricken. He saw the dagger sticking in the ground; apparently
his wife had dropped it there. In his grief, he picked up the dagger and
committed hara-kiri. As the darkness of death descended upon him, he
felt that someone pulled the dagger out of his chest.

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Back at the gate, the Commoner presses the Woodcutter to tell him
what he saw when he found the body. The Woodcutter did not testify
at the inquest because he did not want to get involved. He reports that
after the rape the woman cut her husbands bonds. He called her a
shameless whore and invited her to kill herself. The bandit started to
leave the scene when she challenged him to fight her husband. She
got them to duel by shaming them, calling each weak. The duel
depicted by the Woodcutter is drastically different from the one
depicted by the bandit. In this instance, the two antagonists were
frightened, clumsy, and inept.
Although this final version appears to be the true narrative, the
Commoner finds a fatal flaw in it. At the inquest, nobody was able to
account for the disappearance of the wifes dagger, which reportedly had
a pearl inlaid handle. The Commoner deduces that the Woodcutter took
it. During this confrontation, a baby is heard crying. It is an abandoned
child. In the last scene, the priest is holding the child and the
Woodcutter stands ashamed of his behavior. He then offers to take the
baby and raise it as one of his own, along with his six children. The Priest
sees this as an act of charity that restores his faith in mankind.
Before proceeding to an analysis of the film, the context of its
making must be understood. This involves a review of some of the
history and culture of Japan, as well as the residual effects of World
War II on the populous.
JAPAN DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

The samurai were the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. They

were educated, highly disciplined, and became the standard-bearers
of Japanese values and virtues that included loyalty to the ruler (often
a local one). After the opening of Japan to Western trade in 1854 by
Commodore Matthew Perry and the restoration of the monarchy by
Emperor Meiji in 1868, the samurai were absorbed into the military,
industry, and the bureaucracy. Over the next seventy-five years, the
former samurai helped to propel Japan toward its goal of economic
and military parity with the Great Powers (Itami, 1994). Once that was
achieved, these former samurai worked to protect Japan against the
allied Western powers that were perceived as advancing into Asia
(Nishimura, 2010). In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that well

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before 1941 the Japanese people were being prepared for a war whose
aim would be to carry out the mission of Emperor Hirohitos grandfather, Emperor Meiji, to rid Asia of white men1 (Bergamini, 1971).
In 1929, the Great Depression hit Japan. Over the next two years,
the economy plummeted. However, the economy of Japan began to
turn around as it was transformed for militarization. In September
1931, the incursion into Manchuria began. By March 1932, Japan was
in charge of Manchuria, renamed Manchukuo, and installed the last
emperor of China on the throne as a puppet ruler. Many historians
believe that this was essentially the start of World War II in Asia. Most
ordinary Japanese people, as well as elites, greeted the events of 193132 with unrestrained joy (Gordon, 2003, p. 189). By the late 1930s
Japan, which had already occupied northern China, was pushing
southward and was well on its way toward other conquests in Asia.
The United States joined the League of Nations in denouncing
Japans aggression and expansionism. Yet, the Japanese saw their
own hegemony as no different from the Western occupations in Asia
(Toland, 1970). In effect, the actions of the allies became a rationalization for Japans military ventures.
Militarization of the economy was achieved through state direction.
There was a centralization of the economy and politics that served one
purpose, to mobilize the nation for a war that would rid Asia of western
influence. Since 1880 and through the 1920s, Western culture was
imported and became fashionable. In the late 1930s, the government
began a concerted campaign against modernity. But now the West was
depicted as decadent, and much of its culture was deprecated, soon to
be banned. This included the so-called poisonous output from the
United States, especially jazz and finally baseball (in 1943), which had
been popular since 1890 (Gordon, 2003). That crusade against Western
culture was part of the massification of the society.
With victories against the United States early in the war, the government openly justified the campaign with grand claims that Japan was
pursuing a war to return Asia to Asian control (Gordon, 2003, p. 210)
and glorified it as a holy venture to purge the continent of Westerndominated modernity. Tangibly, it was to liberate the continent from
1

This idea was presaged in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion from 18981901 that aimed to
eliminate foreign, largely Western, spheres of influence and encroaching Christianity in China.

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intrusion by Great Britain, Soviet Russia, the Dutch, the Portuguese,

the French, but above all, American influence.
Prior to 1945 the vast majority of Japanese believed, as a matter of
religious faith, that Japan was invincible because the Emperor was
descended from the sun goddess (Webb, 1971). Emperor Hirohito
was actively worshipped since his ascendency to the throne in 1926.
He had become the father figure for the entire society. The supremacy of the Emperor had been embodied in the 1889 constitution,
which claimed that the Emperor was sacred and inviolable
(Reischauer, 1977). The new regime found the slogan honor the
emperor and expel the barbarians [to be] a powerful battle cry
(Reischauer, 1977, p.245). That became the basis of Japans policy
of Asiafication that finally propelled it into World War II.
In June 1944, as the Battle of Saipan drew to a close, Emperor
Hirohito sent out an imperial directive encouraging civilians of
Saipan to commit suicide. The order stated that civilians who did so
would have an equal spiritual status in the afterlife as those soldiers
who perished in combat. Over 20,000 Japanese civilians committed
suicide in the last days of the battle, many by jumping from two
infamous cliffs (Bergami, 1971). At the Battle of Okinawa in June
1945, the Japanese military warned civilians that they would suffer
rape, torture, and brutal murder at the hands of the Americans (Hein
& Selden, 2003). During World War II, Americans had been depicted
as boorish, uncultured, and potential rapists. Although between
42,000 and 150,000 civilians died there, it is difficult to determine
how many were suicides and how many died in crossfire, of starvation,
or after being pressed into military service. On the mainland the fear
that Americans would commit atrocities was prevalent. Even on the
day of surrender, the staid middle classes were hiding their women in
the hills and giving them cyanide capsules to take in an emergency
(Bergamini, 1971, p. 123).
THE TRAUMA OF DEFEAT

Approximately, 1.7 million Japanese soldiers died between 1937 and

1945. By time the war ended, including civilian casualties, close to 2.5
million Japanese had died. After the war, the country was in chaos.
The people were demoralized, defeated, and humiliated. Crime and

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corruption soared, the system for the delivery of goods and services
broke down, as millions faced starvation, and thousands actually
starved to death (Gordon, 2003). In post-war Japan, the government
fostered a notion that was prevalent in the West, that the Emperor
had been the victim of misinformation and had been deceived by his
underlings, thereby perpetuating the idea that he had not been
responsible for the atrocities Japan had inflicted on China, Korea,
Mongolia, and the Philippines.
There soon developed general revulsion against the war, and particularly the military, who were blamed for steering the nation into
disaster. To their surprise, they [the Japanese people] discovered
that their armies, far from being welcomed in Asia as liberators,
were universally hated (Reischauer, 1977, p.104). In contrast, the
Japanese found the American troops, who were occupying their
land, not to be vindictive barbarians as they had been led to believe.
War trials were held and six top-ranking military officials, including
General Tojo, were sentenced to death, along with one civilian former
prime minister. The effect of the prosecutions strategy was to vindicate the populace, which had wholeheartedly supported Japans wars
in Asia, and to reinforce the notion that Emperor Hirohito was uninvolved in all that happened.
Under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur, a vast undertaking took place over the next three years to repatriate Japanese
from abroad and both Chinese and Koreans to their homelands, to
demilitarize the country, purge the ruling industrial and political
elite, reform education, establish land reform, disestablish the official
state Shinto religion, and create a constitutional government with
universal suffrage that guaranteed freedom of speech, assembly, and
religion. Of note, the postwar constitution downgraded the emperor
from absolute monarch to a symbol of the unity of the Japanese
people.
For eight years Japans rulers had exhorted the Japanese people
endlessly to sacrifice in the emperors name (Gordon, 2003, p.226).
The Emperors divinity and benevolence had been unquestioned so
that millions of soldiers willingly died abroad for him. All of this was
undone rather rapidly during the postwar occupation. On January 1,
1946, the Emperor issued a statement denying his own divinity. That
was the official nail in the coffin of the imperial cult.

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With this background, the movie Rashomon can be reanalyzed in its

social-historical context.

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SYMBOLISM IN THE FILM

The movie begins with a camera shot of a sign on a city gate. It says
Rashomon in Japanese, but that is not clarified in the English subtitles.
The title sequence consists of a series of shots of the half-gate,
Rashomon, in the rain. The last shot shows the final title in
Japanese and explains that the setting is Kyoto, in the twelfth century,
when famines and civil wars had devastated the ancient capital
(Kurosawa & Hashimoto, 1969, p. 12). Rashomon was the largest
gate in ancient Kyoto (ff, p. 175), built in the eight century. It was
once the architectural symbol of the former capital of the country, but
now a crumbling reflection of a devastated city (Davidson, 1954, p.
497). The city not only had suffered extensive destruction by the
twelfth century, but also later during the fifteenth century. That
would have been well known to a Japanese audience. The image of
death and destruction symbolized by the Rashomon gate would
remind a 1950s Japanese audience of the firebombing of Tokyo
and other cities that began in November 1944 and continued until
the horrific devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs
in August 1945. Thus the scene is set for a paradigm of the recently
concluded war.
The history of devastation is referred to early on by the Commoner
and the Priest. After the Priest says that a man has been murdered, the
Commoner replies, Only one? Why, if you go up to the top of this
gate youll always find five or six bodies. Nobody bothers about them
(Kurosawa & Hashimoto, 1969, p. 16). The Priest responds, Oh,
youre right. Wars, earthquakes, great winds, fires, famines, plague
each new year is full of disaster. I, for one, have seen hundreds of men
dying, killed like animals. . . .Yet . . .even I have never heard anything
as horrible as this before (Kurosawa & Hashimoto, 1969, p.16-17). As
scientists will attest, Japan lies in the crosshairs of the most destructive
forces of nature. Throughout its history, it has had to endure
typhoons, tidal waves, floods, landslides, earthquakes, and tsunamis.
Witness the recent 9.0 earthquake and the tsunami of March 2011.

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After hearing the first two stories, which drastically contradict each
other, the Commoner remarks, Oh, I dont object to that. After all,
whos honest nowadays? Look, everyone wants to forget unpleasant
things, so they make up stories. Its easier that way (Kurosawa &
Hashimoto, 1969, p. 103). The Commoner can be seen as speaking
for the people of Japan, who were told contradictory truths about
their recent history. One day the Emperor was god-like, the next he
was an ordinary man, one who could easily be duped by others. The
Japanese had been led to believe they were a mighty people who were
superior to others. By now they knew that they had been fed lies. In a
larger sense, the Japanese people had been subject to the Rashomon
effect.
One of the first characters seen in the retrospective narrative from
the inquest is the bandit. He is depicted as a half-clad savage, a
sweating, scratching, bug-slapping barbarian, who is uncouth, insolent, and raucous. His build and movements, even his features,
suggest something of the gangling awkwardness that appears in
Japanese caricatures of Occidentals (Davidson, 1954, p. 497). His
bravado during the inquest is very uncharacteristic of Japanese manner and would be seen as crude and uncivilized. Such had been the
depiction of Americans by Japanese war propaganda. Juxtapose this
image with what the audience knew by 1950, that the Americans were
nothing like what they had been told and that the Japanese themselves were seen as barbaric by the rest of Asia. Confusion would have
been the audiences reaction.
In contrast, the depiction of the samurai and his wife, especially at
the beginning of the film, represents what was once noble in Japanese
society. The man and wife are depicted at the outset as the very
embodiment of Japanese virtue, refinement and prosperity
(Davidson, 1954, p. 497). This was seen in their manner of movement
and style of action; many of their gestures were reminiscent of the
typical acting in classical kabuki theater (Richie, 1965). The samurai is
depicted as a noble being in the first and third narratives, that of the
bandit and in his own testimony as told through the medium. In the
latter, he does what any noble person would do who had been
dishonored: he committed hara-kiri. The wife, on the other hand, is
progressively seen as an ignoble person. In the first narrative, she is
caught up in the seduction; in the second (her own), she is caught in

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a dilemma as to how to salvage her honor; but in the third, that of the
medium/samurai, she betrays her husband by pleading with the
bandit to take her with him. Thus, there is a gradual evolution of
the narrative as each tries to salvage his or her honor. The audience is
left confused as to what actually happened in the forest.
These three narratives embody the changing views of the Japanese
military, which by now had been radically changed. In fact, many
women of virtue found the American occupiers of their country
more appealing than the returning soldiers who had been humiliated
in defeat. Thus, many Japanese women married American soldiers
and emigrated to the United States.
The Commoner can be seen to be the voice of the people, as he
sees through their respective fictions. He knows that everyone lies, just
as the audience knew that they had been fed a pack of lies by their
leaders, lies which they had formerly embraced wholeheartedly. The
Commoner appears to bring out the truth by confronting the
Woodcutter on his theft of the jeweled dagger. In this narrative, the
samurai and the bandit, when dueling, are cowardly and awkward,
thereby being transformed into anti-heroes. Given the traditional
image of the samurai, imagine the bewilderment created in the viewer
of the film who saw a coward in the Woodcutters narrative near the
end of the film. This can be seen as a metaphor for the descent of the
samurai, who had led the people into a war that devastated their
country and upended their view of the world.
Lebra (1983) noted the continuity between shame and guilt in
Japanese society. The audience likely felt uncomfortable when they saw
the movie. Each version of the narrative is designed to protect the honor
of the storyteller. In the last version, both the samurai and the bandit
acted shamefully. For the audience to identify with that version would
have caused them to come face to face with their own guilt for the
atrocities of the war, which by 1950 had been fully disclosed. That
would have been unbearable. As will be noted later in this article,
cultural identity is interwoven with personal identity. The film challenges
the former and, therefore, would have caused identity confusion in the
viewer. This is a state that is analogous to but not identical to Kernbergs
(1984) description of identity diffusion, in which there is a subjective
experience of chronic emptiness, contradictory self-perceptions . . .and
shallow, flat impoverished perceptions of others (p. 12).

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Given the above, it is no wonder that the film received a muted

response when it was released in 1950 during the American occupation. After the film had exhausted its welcome in Japan, it was
shelved and would have probably remained so if not for a set of
fortuitous circumstances. The organizers of the Venice Film Festival
invited the Japanese film studios to send a submission. The studios
considered several, but not Rashomon. However, the head of
Italiafilm in Japan had seen the picture, liked it, and advocated for
its submission. Against the opposition of the Japanese film establishment, she won out, and Rashomon was sent to Italy where it was
awarded first prize at the 1951 Festival. This came as a profound
shock in Japan (Richie, 1965). Yet, the award launched the popularity of Japanese films in the West. It helped Western audiences accept
the stylistic Japanese manner of action, thereby paving the way for
acceptance of subsequent films.
The ending of the film serves as a coda, in contrast to the lies and
deception that are revealed in its main corpus. All three at the
Rashomon gate, the Priest, the Woodcutter, and the Commoner,
hear the cry of an abandoned infant. The Commoner steals the
babys coverlet, thereby descending in the eye of the viewer into a
selfish person like the rest. He defends his theft by claiming that one
cant survive unless one is selfish. This can be seen as a statement
about the existing state of affairs in Japan after the war, as crime and
corruption were pervasive. The Woodcutters offer to adopt the child
serves as an act of redemption.
Throughout the movie the music was somewhat repetitive, which
Kurosawa intended to consciously mirror Ravels Bolero. At the end,
when the Woodcutter rescues the child, the music becomes traditionally Japanese. The final act of grace has restored a particularly
Japanese kind of rightness (Davidson, 1954, p. 499). Most of the
film deals with the actual and psychological residues of the defeat of
Japan during the war. Yet the film also displays the complexity of
human nature, paving the way for forgiveness and deliverance. In
one sense, the main characters in the film are victims of their time,
the 12th century horrors of devastation. So by extension, the Japanese
people can be redeemed from their part in the recent events of World
War II.

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THE JAPANESE SOCIAL SYSTEM

Because of Japans geographical isolation from other countries and a

centuries-long history of refusal to allow contact with foreigners, it
had become both racially and culturally homogeneous. By the time of
World War II, the Japanese were the most thoroughly unified and
culturally homogeneous large bloc of people in the whole world
(Reischauer, 1977, p. 34). In pre-war Japan, education was a tool for
shaping national unity. Education was so uniform throughout the
country that on any given day every child, in cities distant from one
another, was learning the same material, including the same historical
narratives. During the 1930s and even throughout the war, the newspapers printed the same information, as they served as mouthpieces
for government propaganda. This was an essential, if not intentional,
part of the massification of the society.
The social structure of pre-modern Japan was noted for its sharp class
divisions2 that were based upon hereditary, authority, and aristocratic
privileges. For much of the 20th century, Japan remained a hierarchical,
structured society; this was a vestige of feudalism. Hierarchical relationships were based on birth or possession of a particular skill; this
demarcated authority from others. The elite of the society were
drawn heavily from a small portion of the population that had formerly
constituted the samurai class. Much of the elitism was transformed
during the post-war American occupation. Still hierarchical structure
remained, based on inheritance, in a few cases, but mostly on education, achievement, age, and length of service in an institution.
Even today, relationships to authority are still characterized by deference, obedience, and loyalty. Status has remained important in relationships, even between strangers (Matsumoto, 1996). The relative
status of one person to another determines the degree of deference
and respect that must be shown to someone who has a superior position. Respect for authority has always been reciprocated by paternalism.
Well known to Westerners is the Asian concept of saving face. In
Japanese society, this has been connected to shame. Lebra (1983)
distinguished two levels of shame, a more surface level in which the
2

In the film Rashomon, the Woodcutter is a skilled person who is of a higher class than the
Commoner.

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person feels humiliation in the eyes of others and a deeper level in

which the person feels shame even if others are not aware of the
humiliating act. The latter relates more to fantasies about the way a
person imagines others, even deceased relatives, would see him. He
argues that the two levels are continuous for the Japanese under the
single word haji (p. 194) and that this continuity makes the Japanese
more vulnerable to shame. To protect oneself from haji, the culture
has become replete with codes of formal communication, verbal and
nonverbal, as well as actions, that is, the presentation of the self to the
outsider.
It is not uncommon for Japanese to become sensitized to guiltfeelings when they see their kin or other significant persons suffer
from illness, death, or other misfortunes, regardless of their responsibility for these sufferings (Lebra, 1983, pp. 204-205). The underlying fantasy is that shameful or wrongful acts will bring criticism of
loved ones, cause discomfort for others, or cause them trouble. Thus
apologies seem in order.
The Japanese have been known for their groupism, be that to the
family, but also true for ones school, place of employment, or any
other enduring group to which one belongs (Yamaguchi, 1986, p.
572). The small group constitutes the basic social unit of allegiance to
the extent that a misdeed by anyone in that group automatically
evokes shame in all (Kotani, 1999). The concept of saving face in
Japan mostly refers to the emotional connections to other members of
the particular group with which one identifies (Reischauer, 1977).
Loyalty has always been a core value in Japanese society. With industrialization in the latter half of the 19th century, loyalty tended to shift
to the firm, trade, or profession to which one belonged.
The psychological components of groupism include sacrifice of selfinterest for the sake of others, thereby neglecting individualism. The
society is imbedded in collectivism to the neglect of individual concerns (Scheidlinger, 2010a), and there are subtle social pressures
against individuality. Personal initiative and individual thought is
suppressed in the cause of preserving the [group or] organization
(Miyamoto, 1994, p71). This is well expressed in a Japanese proverb
that reads in English: The stake that sticks out, gets hammered in (Kotani,
1999, p. 94). Harmony in the group is related to individual humility,
which is very important to the Japanese (Matsumoto, 1996). In return

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for the lack of self-expression, attachment to the group provides one

with a sense of belonging that brings with it a feeling of being
accepted which, in turn, affects ones sense of worth.
Miyamoto (1998) noted that the Japanese discourage central
aspects of individuality such as taking initiative, making independent
decisions, and taking responsibility. He claimed that the Japanese
display a special type of narcissism that he called reciprocal mirroring.
This means that during interpersonal exchanges when one looks at
another, he/she will make every effort to act as a mirror for that
person and ignore differences. This illusion of sameness solidifies
group relationships.
Miyamoto (1994) noted that the pressure to conform to group
norms begins early in schooling. Special talents are discouraged,
and children feel compelled to hide their abilities, in line with the
proverb that a wise hawk hides his talons (p. 143). Bullying can
occur to purge an individual of unacceptable attitudes. Whenever
bullying occurs, the teachers stance is one of noninterference
(Scheidlinger, 2010a). At times, hazing serves as a rite of passage
that earns subjects acceptance by the group. Self-criticism is part of
the school curriculum. Thus, from childhood on, the Japanese are
trained to be aware of their actions and especially the effect of their
action or inaction on others.
Miyamoto (1998), writing well after World War II, attributed homogenization to the absence of fathers who work long hours and socialize with colleagues until late in the evening. Parenting has always
been left to the mother. Children become psychologically fused with
the mother; this begins with breastfeeding and sleeping together. Doi
(1963) noted an overindulgence of children from infancy so that
mothers are in almost constant attendance on their babies, are likely
to pick them up or otherwise divert them as soon as they cry (p. 268).
He reported that helplessness and a desire to be loved are inculcated
early in life. There is a widespread custom of preserving portions of
the umbilical cord as a symbol of the continuing union with the
mother (Scheidlinger, 2010b). The mothers expectations have a
strong influence on the children, as they become the medium for
transmission of societal values and beliefs. Boys, particularly, feel the
threat of abandonment with attendant separation anxiety if they do
not meet mothers expectations. These bonds are later transferred to

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the school, where children are expected to arrive an hour before the
official start of the day and are pressured to participate in school
clubs. Finally, in adulthood, these narcissistically fused relationships
are transferred to the work group and society at large. Thus, a variety
of societal institutions serve as maternal images for the populace. This
can be understood in terms of the group psychological notion of the
mother-group (Scheidlinger, 2010b).
Granted, extrapolation of the study of small groups to large social
ones is risky. However, given the homogeneity of Japanese society,
application seems appropriate here. In this sort of group formation,
where fantasies of a patriarchal sovereign dominate, there are abundant outlets for libidinal attachments, but little room for the sublimation of aggression. Therefore, aggression becomes directed toward
outsiders.3 This may partially explain how a society that was so
restrained, kind, and caring for one another at home could be so
brutal to foreigners, as the Japanese soldiers were during the 1930s
and World War II. The examples are legion and include the so-called
rape of Nanking/Nanjing during December 1937 (Gordon, 2003);
numerous massacres throughout Asia; the brutal treatment of captives
such as the infamous Bataan Death March in the Philippines in 1942;
and the forced labor of both prisoners and civilians, the most notorious of which was the so-called Korean Comfort Women.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY IN JAPAN

Kotani (1999) hypothesized that Japanese patients manifest intense

cohesiveness in psychotherapy groups, as they do in social groups. It is
as if the group constitutes a common self, so that members almost
immediately adapt to the groups norms, atmosphere, and role expectations. Since the Japanese person makes himself vulnerable to haji by
disclosing himself, conducting psychotherapy and especially group
psychotherapy is culturally arduous. Group psychotherapists have
found that deference to authority has gotten carried to the point
3
Miyamoto (1994) observed, when discussing the Japanese bureaucracy in the late 20th
century, that attitudes of extreme politeness, social reserve, and being quiet, staid, and serious
conceal other aspects of the human experience associated with stress and conflict. In contrast,
Japanese men, in particular when away from their usual social milieu and especially in a foreign
country, are prone to exhibit unbridled behavior.

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where leaders have to be followed without question. Fear of disrupting

the common group self has posed special challenges to treatment
(Yamaguchi, 1986).
Culturally, psychological problems have been considered to be a
stain, evidence of impurity that, if expressed, disturbs the harmony of
the group (Miyamoto, 1998). In contrast to Western culture where
one turns to an authority figure (e.g., cleric or therapist) to express
ones feelings openly, in Japan this sort of relationship is generally
frowned upon (Matsumoto, 1996). The reasons for this were best
described by Roland (1983). Roland examined psychoanalytic therapy
conducted by American-trained and Japanese-trained therapists in
Japan. In both instances, the dyad in the treatment was hierarchical
in nature. He noted that the patient normally idealizes the therapist
and in a sense gratifies the therapists own self-esteem by being
dependent, while expecting nurturance, protection, and being taken
care of by the therapist for the rest of his or her life. The hierarchically superior therapist is expected to sense and to know the subordinates or patients needs and feelings (Roland, 1983, p. 501).
Previously, Doi (1963) noted the same phenomena with his patients,
who in the course of treatment. . .[develop] a hypersensitivity about
what the therapist might feel of or think about them (p. 266). The
private self is kept secret. Yamaguchi (1986) stated that Japan has
been called a country where silence is golden (p. 575). Only when
the therapist senses the patients feelings did the latter feel free to
expose them.
In accord with the observations of Yamaguchi (1986), Roland
(1983) noted patients rarely if ever expressing any anger directly
towards the therapist but frequently displacing it elsewhere (p.
504). Idealizing a leader in a homogeneous group, in which individuality is discouraged, leaves no room for the expression of aggression, except onto an outside object. Redl (1942) described this in his
seminal paper on the types of group formation that occur when the
members are influenced by a central person. One type was labeled the
Patriarchal Sovereign. This person stands for order and discipline
with a deeply held sense of values. The group members identify with
the leader and incorporate his values. As long as they behave according to his code they feel happily securesheltered (Redl, 1942, p.

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577). This sort of group formation creates harmony, a sense of purpose, and a set of principles for its members4.

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IMPLICATIONS FOR GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY

It is important to re-emphasize that the film Rashomon was made in

1950, during the post-World War II period when Japanese society was
traumatized. As Hopper (2003) notes, traumatized groups can manifest states of Incohesion or Aggregation. Clinically, psychotherapy
groups can be traumatized in major or minor ways. These can range
from traumatic events in society at large to conditions that only affect
the group itself. The latter can include the sudden illness of a therapist, the death or serious illness of a patient, a violent outburst by a
patient, an unexpected absence by a therapist or patient, and so forth.
A group that has been traumatized can become fragmented. When
the psychological threat is external, clarification of the groups reactions can be sufficient. Then a functional group can go through a
period of catharsis and problem solving. Those details need not be
elaborated here.
When the threat is internal, the members can often act as if
cohesion is present. They can form an aggregate or mass. This has
been termed a loosely organized psychological group (Kaplan &
Roman, 1963) or a group illusion (Anzieu, 1984). The members
develop pseudo-mutuality, believing that they are cohesive. In fact,
they relate as singletons to one another and to the leader, much as the
Japanese did to the Emperor. Idealization of the therapist then serves
as a defense against self-awareness, particularly of their own sadistic
potential. Such a condition can easily disarm the therapist, who
secretly enjoys being idealized, and give the appearance of a group
that works well, perhaps unaware that aggression is split off and
denied.
Scapegoating can be a means of expressing split-off aggression.
Redl (1963) had noted that group members can assume group roles
that are ego-dystonic. He claimed that such persons seem to reserve
some role-acting for some groups only, and do not show much of it in
the rest of their lives (p. 144). Role suction is a double-edged sword.
4

Consider this in terms of imperial worship which will be discussed shortly.

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While it is disconcerting for that particular member, it gives one the

unconscious sense of serving a purpose for the group. That constitutes an as if belonging.
The task of dealing with such resistances can be formidable. As
Bion (1959) noted, interpretation of such group phenomena can be
tantamount to attacking a religious belief. There exists in the group
an internal establishment (Hoggett, 1993)a highly organized
agency . . .that operates as an invisible, secretive reactionary force
that patrols a section of the groups unknown thoughta known
that threatens the group illusion. Overcoming such resistant states is
a complex process that is beyond the discussion here and has been
articulated elsewhere (Kibel, 1993).
IMPERIAL WORSHIP

Emperor Hirohito was considered a father figure for Japanese society.

As previously noted, he was believed to have descended from the sun
goddess (Webb, 1971). The imperial line, which is traceable back to
the fifth century, had been the constant symbol of unity of the nation.
During the late 1930s and World War II, the regressive forces generated by mobilizing the entire society for military conquest caused a
temporary shift in groupism to the nation-as-a-whole under the psychological egis of the Emperor. As Kernberg (2003, p. 135) noted,
Totalitarian educational systems permit a systematic indoctrination
of children and youth into the dominant ideology, including the
adoration of the omnipotent and omniscient leader. All Japanese
were in awe of him; privates and generals were all ready to die for
him. When facing death, Japanese soldiers would say Banzai, which
means ten thousand years. It was a prayer that soldiers and pilots
uttered when facing death. It was short for the entire prayer, May the
Emperor live ten thousand years (Bergamini, 1971, p. xxxi).
When the war in the Pacific was drawing to a close, in October
1944, after Japan had lost its experienced pilots and its airplanes were
outdated, the infamous kamikaze attacks began. These were suicidal
missions; the pilots, whose planes were laden with explosives, bombs,
torpedoes, and full fuel tanks, would attempt to crash their aircraft
into enemy ships. These pilots were students in their late teens [who]
were taught . . .that they would be happy forever if they died for their

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Emperor (God) (Volkan, 2004, p. 301). This overcame the sense of

helplessness, shame, and humiliation that they had felt with the
anticipation of military defeat.
The psychological process for suicide attacks calls upon large-group
identity, which was tied to each ones fantasized relationship to the
Emperor. This superseded the innate survival instincts of the individual. Killing oneself did not seem to matter; what mattered was the
glory of the nation. Large-group identity probably enhanced the
kamikaze pilots self-esteem, as he felt omnipotent and proud to die.
Thus, other members of the traumatized community have come to
see him . . .as the carrier, the agent, of the groups identity (Volkan,
2004, p. 160).
Japan delayed surrender in order to seek reassurance that the
Potsdam5 Proclamation, which demanded unconditional surrender,
would not mean the destruction of the essence of its society
(Toland, 1970, p. 758).6 Even after the dropping of the first atomic
bomb, the Japanese cabinet was divided on whether or not to surrender in accordance with the terms of the Proclamation. The cabinet
was also still divided for days after the dropping of the second atomic
bomb. Finally, the Emperor in an unprecedented step had to intercede to break the tie. The Emperor took another unprecedented step
by broadcasting the surrender over the radio (Toland, 1970).
The wording of Hirohitos surrender message to his people was
designed to save face. He never quite acknowledged that Japan had
lost the war. Rather, he said that the war situation has developed not
necessarily to Japans advantage. Although many had already known
about the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hirohito did not mention them specifically. Rather, he said that the enemy has begun to
employ a new and most cruel bomb (Bergamini, 1971, p. 112;
Toland, 1970, p. 838), which threatened not only the extermination
of our race, but the destruction of all human civilization (Gordon,
5
The Potsdam Conference was held in July 1945 in a small town outside Berlin. It was
attended by the big three powers, the United States represented by President Harry Truman,
Great Britain represented by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the Soviet Union represented by Generalissimo Joseph Stalin. It called for the unconditional surrender by Japan but
with preservation of the Imperial Monarchy.
6
From cables intercepted between Tokyo and Moscow in which Japan asked Moscow to
intercede, giving it more favorable terms.

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2003, p. 227). In this way, he attempted to turn the history of the war
upside down by presenting the Japanese people as victims. He
expressed his sincere desire to ensure Japans self-preservation and
said that to continue to fight would result in an ultimate collapse and
obliteration of the Japanese nation (Bergamini, 1971, p. 112). This
was a momentous event, as it was the first time the people had heard
the Emperors voice.
War Minister Anami was among the first of the high command to
commit hara-kiri. Upon hearing the Emperors speech of surrender,
many civilians killed themselves. In all, 376 Army men from general
to private, 113 Navy men from admiral to seaman, and 37 nurses and
civilians died by their own hand that week, a grand total of only 526
(Bergamini, 1971, pp. 112-113). Many more people committed suicide in the coming weeks. It appears as if the humiliation of defeat,
the awareness that the descendent of the sun goddess could not
protect the people, the shattering of the belief that Japan was invincible, and the fear of being ravaged by Occidental barbarians was too
much to bear.
MASSIFICATION

Volkan drew our attention to the importance of large-group identity

affecting entire populations (2001). He focused only on the negative
aspects of social experience when he described how a chosen trauma
could trigger destructive forces, such as happened in the former
Yugoslavia. Yet, there are positive aspects of large-group identity.
Shared histories help to create national cultures. Social identity is the
foundation of social relations because it connects the persons inner
world to the external world of shared experiences and perceptions.
These include cultural constructs that bind people together into a
social fabric; examples include a countrys history, its values, shared
myths, and so forth. Ultimately, social identity is tied to parents and
other important caretakers, who transmit both overt values and subtle
attitudes to their offspring. Because of its dual roots in culture and
family, each persons core individual identity and large-group [cultural] identity thus become inextricably intertwined (Volkan, 2004, p.
39). Foulkess (1975) forerunner of this concept had been dubbed the
foundation matrix. When discussing its roots, he stated that the

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foundation matrix, [is not only] based on the biological properties of

the species, but also on the culturally firmly embedded values and
reactions (p. 131) of members of a society. Freud (1921) foresaw the
effect of mass psychology in his discussion of the Church and the Army.
Many theorists have noted that the need to belong is a powerful
psychic force. Dalal (2001) has carried this further by claiming, appropriately so, that the personal and social aspects of the psyche are one
and the same. From a Freudian psychoanalytic perspective, he put this
succinctly by saying that the id itself is acculturated (p. 543). This
means that cultural constructs become part of the internal organization of the psyche; they permeate identity and form the bedrock of
each persons sense of security. Coherence in the self develops
through connections to the larger community and serves to defend
against primitive anxieties. The sense of we-ness, therefore, ultimately
defends against the fear of annihilation. Once that is threatened or
even destroyed, as in the case of the defeat of Japan in 1945, social
identity fragments. This also accounts for the plethora of suicides that
occurred after the surrender.
Homogenization of a society precludes diversity in thinking. Unlike
a pluralistic society, a homogeneous one sociologically is a mass.
Nishimura (2010) noted that during the war there was enormous
pressure on people to comply with the norm of patriotism and sacrifice for the Emperor and the nation. Those who did not conform to
these norms were forced, in direct or indirect ways, to punish themselves (p. 87). They lost face and were consider virtually non-human.
Nishimura refers to this as a process of massification (Hopper, 2003),
which was a consequence of the combination of homogeneity of the
population and adoration of the Emperor. A social group becomes a
mass when their ideals and values, that is, their ego-ideals, are commonly invested in the same person (Freud, 1921). Hopper (2003)
noted certain characteristics of massified societies, such as the pressure toward conformity, a lack of individuality, failure to learn from
experience, an attitude of moral superiority, and shunning, banning,
and scapegoating anyone who deviates from expectations. This
description conforms to what was said above about Japanese groupism. More importantly for our purposes here, in massified societies
Hopper notes that aggression gets regulated in problematic ways, such
as various forms of nationalism that are often associated with ethnic

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purification, targeting other groups and their members who are seen
as a source of pollution, and sexualization of aggressive feelings that
can include sadism.
Canetti (1962), a social psychologist, said that the concept of the
crowd was directly related to large-group identity. He noted that crowds
have feelings of hostility and persecution toward anything that opposes
their aims. These attitudes are basic to their existence. Such attitudes
are consistent with the wartime Japanese view of Occidentals. Like
religions, crowds feel a sense of universality such that every single
soul counts and every single soul is theirs. The sense of bliss comes
from feeling connected to the Lord. They contemplate Him and sing
His praises. As they collectively accept Him, they will never separate
from each other. Tracing their origins back to common ancestors
glorifies the crowd and its leader. One need only replace the words
Lord and leader with Emperor and the applicability becomes clear.
From a psychoanalytic perspective, Kernberg (2003) drew upon the
classical work of Freud (1921) on mass psychology and stated that
The mutual identification of all members of the mass provides them
with a sense of belonging and strength, and the projection of their
responsibility onto the leader gives them a sense of exhilaration and
exciting freedom from moral constraints (p. 129).
Long before these contributions, Le Bon (1895) drew our attention
to an important aspect of mass psychology. He noted that although
one may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian
that is, a creature acting by instinct. He possesses the spontaneity, the
violence, the ferocity and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings (p. 77). This furthers the understanding of the unspeakable barbarism that the Japanese soldiers perpetrated throughout
China, the most famous of which was the so-called Rape of
Nanking/Nanjing during December 1937 (Gordon, 2003). To this,
one must add that during the war nearly thirty-six thousand British
and American soldiers died in captivity (Gordon, 2003, p. 224).
DISCUSSION

Emile Durkheim (1893), who is generally regarded as the father of

modern sociology, introduced the concept of social facts, which is used
today by group analysts and group psychologists who write about the

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social unconscious. He viewed social institutions as dominant in society

and claimed that individuals were so dependent on them that these
structures could overwhelm the expression of individuality. People are
born into a culture into which they are initiated, literally from birth.
They are inculcated with its values and shared norms. Dalal (2001)
carried these ideas to the extreme, claiming that the social precedes the
psychological and that the individual cannot avoid incorporating the
dominant values of his culture so that they become an integral part of
his personality. Foulkes (1948) did not deny individuality, but he came
close to this notion when he stated that each individualitself an
artificial, though plausible abstractionis basically and centrally determined, inevitably, by the world in which he lives, by the community, the
group of which he forms a part (p. 10).
Today writers differ as to the degree to which the social influences
the personal and vice versa. But, there is general agreement that the
two are intermingled. Volkan (2004), who has written about largegroup affiliation, noted that it can be quite powerful because an
individuals sense of ethnic, religious, or national identity is so closely
tied to his or her core identityhis or her deep, personal sense of
sameness, of stable gender and body image, and of continuity between
past, present, and future (p. 24).
Massification of an entire society is built on a foundation of homogenization and uniformity of thinking and perception. That is what
happened to Japanese society during the 1930s and World War II
(Nishimura, 2010). The stage was set by social isolation before the
mid-19th century Meiji Restoration. After that, modernization brought
Japan into contemporary industrial society. Much of that was reversed
during the 1930s. Japan was propelled into massification by homogenization of education and news outlets, and the endorsement by the
populace of its stated philosophy that the goal of military action was to
rid Asia of Occidental influence in order to preserve Asia for Asians;
thus, its military successes at that time and early during World War II
were greeted with joy. Massive use of projection allowed the people to
believe that their cause was just. Then during the war itself, the
imperial cult was magnified so that Japanese soldiers willingly died
for the Emperor and people swallowed the propaganda that
Caucasians were barbarians who would commit atrocities on
Japanese civilians.

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The first three narratives in Rashomon do not challenge this worldview. That of the bandit depicts a barbarian committing an atrocity,
namely, killing a samurai who appears heroic; he acts with uncivilized
bravado at the inquest. The narrative of the wife and the samurai
himself, as told through a medium, while contradictory, do not challenge the audiences view of Japanese society. They merely demonstrate, as the Commoner observed, that people often lie, in this case,
to save face. The Woodcutter and the Priest who were at that inquest
were initially bewildered because the three narratives were so much at
variance with one another. Only when the Woodcutter was forced to
reveal that he saw all that happened and tells his version is the
audience jolted into a state of confusion. What really happened
seems ever more uncertain.
The state of bewilderment that the film produces reflected the state of
confusion of Japans national identity (Nishimura, 2010) that followed
the war and was reinforced by the post-war American reforms. Japanese
collective identity was shattered; that was traumatic. As Freud noted
(1921), when the group (in this case, the society itself) disintegrates,
panic ensues. By 1950, the people were in the midst of social chaos.
CONCLUSION

There has been no study of what happens to massified social systems

when their very foundation of massification collapses. One can easily
conjecture that if massification is intertwined with personal identity, as
the Japanese were well prior to the making of the film, a bedrock for
identity confusion had been laid. Individuals often deny reality but
may also search for something familiar to which they can attach
themselves, hang onto for dear life, so to speak. Myths of former
times that are often falsely gloried can become a focus of attachment7.
In Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa reminded the audience of a sanitized
past by setting the scenario in the ancient capital. After the international success of this film, Kurosawa produced and directed several
more that glorified the samurai. This may have helped the Japanese to
7

That is what Volkan (2001) had described in his seminal paper on the transmission of
chosen societal traumas.

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psychologically eschew mid-twentieth century Japan and attach themselves to a supposedly noble past.

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Howard D. Kibel, M.D., CGP, DFAGPA
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