"Mike Rogers is a one-man United Nations. With a wickedly astute sense of humor he successfully cross-pollinates two seemingly divergent worlds with daring insight and aplomb. He's a fearless David in a land of Goliaths; his perfectly aimed slings and arrows hit the bullseye every time."--Pamela DesBarres, author of I'm With The Band, Rock Bottom, and Let's Spend the Night Together "American ambassadors are enforcers of the imperial will rather than negotiators of peace and friendship. Thank goodness those of us who love freedom have our own ambassador to Japan, Mike Rogers. With great humor and knowledge, as well as a good heart, Mike in Tokyo helps us understand a little about that great nation, and U.S. relations with it. He deserves the anarchists' Nobel."--Lew Rockwell, www.LewRockwell.com "Social commentary seldom surprises experienced readers. Once we figure out the writer's allegiance to some faction, we can predict what the writer is going to say. Not so with this writer."--Robert Klassen, author of Atlantis, A Novel about Economic Government Expatriate Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers shares his musings on a variety of topics from the war in Iraq to the differences between Japanese and American baseball to kamikaze taxi drivers. His witty and engaging style will have you laughing out loud as you explore his perceptions of the world through the lenses of two different cultures.

"This is a terrific book―moving, clear, and compassionate. It not only illustrates the way psychiatric illness is shaped by culture, but also suggests that social environments can be used to improve the course and outcome of the illness. Well worth reading." — T. M. Luhrmann, author of Of Two Minds: An Anthropologist looks at American Psychiatry Bethel House, located in a small fishing village in northern Japan, was founded in 1984 as an intentional community for people with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. Using a unique, community approach to psychosocial recovery, Bethel House focuses as much on social integration as on therapeutic work. As a centerpiece of this approach, Bethel House started its own businesses in order to create employment and socialization opportunities for its residents and to change public attitudes toward the mentally ill, but also quite unintentionally provided a significant boost to the distressed local economy. Through its work programs, communal living, and close relationship between hospital and town, Bethel has been remarkably successful in carefully reintegrating its members into Japanese society. It has become known as a model alternative to long-term institutionalization. In A Disability of the Soul, Karen Nakamura explores how the members of this unique community struggle with their lives, their illnesses, and the meaning of community. Told through engaging historical narrative, insightful ethnographic vignettes, and compelling life stories, her account of Bethel House depicts its achievements and setbacks, its promises and limitations. A Disability of the Soul is a sensitive and multidimensional portrait of what it means to live with mental illness in contemporary Japan.

This book addresses the profound question of mental malaise in its many forms in contemporary Japanese society, focusing on: work, family and youth. The purpose is to provide an analytical, critical account of the social psychological state of the Japanese today, as well as to present possible measures that could contribute to positive outcomes.

Exploring how depression has become a national disease in Japan, this work shows how psychiatry has responded to the nation's ailing social order & how, in a remarkable transformation, the discipline has begun to overcome longstanding resistance to its intrusion in Japanese life.