抄録
Recently the concept of care has been attracting more and more attention in the fields of medicine and welfare. It is sometimes underlined that the act of care is an interaction, i.e. not only the act of help responding to the act of requirement for help, but an act of agreement by those who are cared for is also necessary for the care to be completed. Now in Japan many medical professionals call a patient ‘Kanja-sama’ instead of calling him/her ‘Kanja’ or ‘Kanja-san’. The word ‘Kanja’ means patient and the ‘sama’ is attached to express more respect than ‘san’. Here a patient seems to be regarded as a special customer, guest, or even a monarch. This shift from ‘Kanja’ to ‘Kanja-san’ and finally to ‘Kanja-sama’ is connected with the appearance of so called monster patient who behaves as he/she likes. At the basis of the shift there lies the element of the agreement by cared for as a necessary requirement for genuine care. This shift applies to the relationships in child care. Moreover, it applies to other quite different relationships such as between humans and gods or natural environment, though the direction of the shift is reverse. The attitude of Japanese people toward gods or nature has shifted from that of respect to anthropocentrism. Such moves have been very difficult to explain; however, if we interpret ‘worship’ or ‘enshrine’ in Japanese tradition as a kind of care, the puzzle will be solved. There may remain a fundamental question of what the original form of care is. In this paper I referred to the study by M.M.Leininger as a clue to solve that problem.
Recently the concept of care has been attracting more and more attention in the fields of medicine and welfare. It is sometimes underlined that the act of care is an interaction, i.e. not only the act of help responding to the act of requirement for help, but an act of agreement by those who are cared for is also necessary for the care to be completed. Now in Japan many medical professionals call a patient `Kanja-sama' instead of calling him/her `Kanja' or `Kanja-san'. The word `Kanja' means patient and the `sama' is attached to express more respect than `san'. Here a patient seems to be regarded as a special customer, guest, or even a monarch. This shift from `Kanja' to `Kanja-san' and finally to `Kanja-sama' is connected with the appearance of so called monster patient who behaves as he/she likes. At the basis of the shift there lies the element of the agreement by cared for as a necessary requirement for genuine care. This shift applies to the relationships in child care. Moreover, it applies to other quite different relationships such as between humans and gods or natural environment, though the direction of the shift is reverse. The attitude of Japanese people toward gods or nature has shifted from that of respect to anthropocentrism. Such moves have been very difficult to explain; however, if we interpret `worship' or `enshrine' in Japanese tradition as a kind of care, the puzzle will be solved. There may remain a fundamental question of what the original form of care is. In this paper I referred to the study by M.M.Leininger as a clue to solve that problem.