Introduction

The Laboratory of “Department of Psychopathology & Psychotherapy” was started in 1991 with the leadership of Pr. Toshihiko Takahashi as the professor. After Prof. Takahashi’s retirement in 2004, Pr. Toyoaki Ogawa became the professor, and after his retirement in 2019, I, Tadaaki Furuhashi, has taken over the leadership of the Laboratory as an associate professor. Prof. Takahashi established research on delusion and other researches from the standpoint of psychopathology, and Prof. Ogawa is a leading expert who practices psychoanalysis.

Actually, the Japanese name of our laboratory means the laboratory of medical mental health, however, the English name is “Department of Psychopathology & Psychotherapy”. Psychopathology, which describes human mental phenomena, is not possible without psychotherapy, which deals with mutual human mental involvement. On the contrary, if psychotherapy is conducted without scientific study, which describes mental phenomena, although it may be possible to have involvement, it will be impossible to describe the involvement and transmit it as a scientific study. Furthermore, for Ph.D. students studying in The Laboratory of “Department of Psychopathology & Psychotherapy”, it goes without saying that their own personal clinical experience is the most important. Of course, they can receive guidance on how to describe their experience to a certain degree. However, they need to acquire the essential parts individually.

Research Projects

1. Joint Japanese-French study of hikikomori (social withdrawal) (Furuhashj Tadaaki)
2. Liaison-consultation psychiatry (Nagashima Wataru)

Faculty Members

Faculty	Position	Department
Furuhashj Tadaaki	Associate Professor	Psychopathology and Psychotherapy
Nagashima Wataru	Assistant Professor	Psychopathology and Psychotherapy

Research Keywords

Psychiatry、 Psychopathology、 Psychoanalysis、 Psychotherapy、 Sociocultural Psychiatry、 Adolescent Psychiatry、 Schizophrenia、 Mood disorders、 Perversion、 Neurosis、 Hikikomori

My work (Furuhashi)

I entered the current laboratory as a member in 2005. Prior to that, I devoted myself to clinical practice as a psychiatrist at the university hospital and psychiatric hospital.  From that time, Pr. Toshihiko Takahashi and Pr. Toyoaki Ogawa, as I wrote in the introduction of the Laboratory of “Department of Psychopathology & Psychotherapy”, and other outstanding psychiatrists belonged to the psychopathology study group of the Department of Psychiatry, Nagoya University School of Medicine. I was in a very blessed environment. Therefore, my methodology is both psychopathology and psychotherapy. My research themes were gender-related psychiatric problems before, and now it is “Hikikomori”. The age range of Hikikomori has broadened from young people to middle-aged people in recent years and even the areas of emergence have spread from Japan to overseas (particularly the spread to France is my subject of interest).

Although it can be said in any field, what is important in research is to step into an unexplored area, or to discover what is not yet discovered by anyone. Moreover, psychiatry is much more susceptible to changes of the time than the other special fields.  Therefore, although it may seem that all areas have already been thoroughly studied, since new phenomena occur are occurring even now, there is no shortage of research areas to be studied. For example, it is well-known that the internet has had a great influence on the human mind. The influence on mental malfunctions cannot be ignored, therefore, for those who want to study such area, The Laboratory of “Department of Psychopathology & Psychotherapy” maybe the most suitable place. In my case, I have been studying French psychiatry and psychoanalysis, and have stayed in France often. As I did so, I found that there were young people also in France who withdraw from society (i.e. “Hikikomori”) just like the socially withdrawn students I usually consult at Nagoya University. Thus I began to indicate that they could be explained more with the word “Hikikomori”. In France, there were young people who had socially withdrawn from before, however, there was no term to refer to them. Currently, there are some French Hikikomori that I regularly follow-up, and there are times I am asked to give a lecture in various parts of France and recently also in other European countries (UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, etc.). Leaving that aside, after all, it is necessary to have some kind of traditional base of existing psychiatry to academically describe what kind of new phenomena it is. Therefore, it can be said that I am extremely fortunate to have a foundation of both psychopathology and psychotherapy.

Call for Graduate Students

At the Laboratory, Associate Professor Furuhashi normally works together with Assistant Professor Nagashima in the field of student mental health. He continues researching a wide range of pathologies that occur during puberty. His research is based on psychopathology and psychoanalysis. In addition, with support from a grant-in-aid for scientific research, he is conducting a joint Japanese-French study of hikikomori (social withdrawal), and has a large network of contacts among researchers in Japan and other countries. He also conducts joint research with a French researcher who occasionally stays in his laboratory. Associate Professor Furuhashi shows great care for graduate students and they are especially drawn to him.

Assistant Professor Nagashima works together with Associate Professor Furuhashi in the field of student mental health. His research theme is liaison-consultation psychiatry. It is dealing with psychiatric problems (eg, depression, anxiety, delirium, etc. ) in patients with chronic physical illness. His fields of specialty are particularly palliative care, psycho-oncology, and oral psychosomatic diseases.