[2] Morita therapy was originally developed to address shinkeishitsu,[3][4] an outdated term used in Japan to describe patients who have various types of anxiety.
[7] Shoma Morita (1874–1938) was a psychiatrist, researcher, philosopher, and academic department chair at Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo.
[6] Morita therapy seeks to have patients learn to accept fluctuations of thoughts and feelings and ground their behavior in reality.
[6] Cure is not defined by the alleviation of discomfort (which the philosophy of this approach opposes), but by taking action in one's life to not be ruled by one's emotional state.
[9] Morita is a four-stage process of therapy involving: In the first stage, the patient is ordered to stay on absolute bed rest, even to take meals, only rising to use the restroom.
[14] The shinkeishitsu concept has also been broadened to also consider life situations in which modern westerners may find themselves, involving stress, pain and the aftermath of trauma.
[14] A Cochrane review conducted in 2015 assessed the effectiveness of Morita based therapy for anxiety disorder in adults.
The review does not include a single case of Classic Morita Therapy being used, all studies were conducted in hospitals in the People's Republic of China between about 1994 and 2007.