Surprisingly readable and studded with nuggets of insight."-The Daily Yomiuri "This insightful, well-written, fascinating book offers new understandings, not only of Japan, but also of American culture. It is essential for those in anthropology, psychology, sociology, and psychiatry who are interested in culture, as well as those in law and the business community who deal with Japan."-Paul Ekman, Ph.D,Director, Human Interaction Laboratory, Langley Porter Institute, University of California, San Francisco "[A] thoughtful cross-cultural study of development. His work can only enhance the still evolving psychoanalytic theory of preoedipal development as it is being derived mostly from psychoanalytic research on child-parent interaction in American families."-Calvin F. Settlage, M.D. "Johnson's ambitious and exhaustive synthesis of anthropological and psychological treatments of dependency raises interesting questions. Johnson alerts the reader to issues of universalism and relativity and leads us to ask, 'What would psychoanalysis be like, if it had originated in Japan?'"-Merry I. White, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University ". Johnson's erudite and critical re-examination of human dependence succeeds to re-profile dependence meaningfully and revives our interest in this major aspect of human experience. Indeed, much food for thought for both psychoanalysts and anthropologists."-Henri Parens, M.D, Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute Western ideologies traditionally emphasize the concepts of individualism, privacy, freedom, and independence, while the prevailing ethos relegates dependency to a disparaged status. In Japanese society, the divergence from these western ideals can be found in the concept of amae (perhaps best translated as indulgent dependency) which is part of the Japanese social fiber and pervades their experience. For the Western reader, the concept of amae is somewhat alien and unfamiliar, but in order to u