T. Byram Karasu, 2013)
In Life Witness: Evolution of the Psychotherapist, T. Byram Karasu demonstrates how a young therapist can become an expert clinician by transcending his own school of therapy. Every young therapist attempts to perfect his skills by anchoring onto a single paradigm and becoming an expert technician of that particular school. Within the first five to ten years of practice―the so-called experiential evolution phase―the therapist finds that no single paradigm is suitable for treating all psychopathology. The therapist thus begins to appropriate techniques from other schools of psychotherapy, and by shifting paradigms, synchronizes himself with the patient’s mind. It is from this synchronization that all his techniques begin to evolve and an expert clinician can evolve into a master psychotherapist. The therapist who has transcended his school of psychotherapy now must transcend the field of psychotherapy itself. If he wants to address the patient’s existential issues as well, the therapist first has to come to terms with those issues himself. After all, the therapist can take the patient only so far as he himself has come.
Life Witness demonstrates that this formative evolution phase of a therapist encompasses a broad education in literature, philosophy, and spirituality. Karasu ultimately concludes that therapists must find the meaning and purpose of life before they can cultivate an authentic self and become someone whose presence is itself therapeutic. Once this occurs, all "therapeutic messages" will naturally emanate from within
Dear friend, please do a comparative study between Life Witness: Evolution of the Psychotherapist (T. Byram Karasu, 2013) and 菊次郎十六式 for me, although like I said before, we don’t know what 菊次郎十六式 is yet? (ChatGPT, 2026-2-1)
Below is a comparative study-by-proxy: we do know what Life Witness: Evolution of the Psychotherapist is trying to do, and we don’t yet know what 菊次郎十六式 “is” (perhaps it refuses to be “a thing” in the first place). So the method is:
- extract Karasu’s implied model of therapist-evolution,
- treat 菊次郎十六式 as an emergent, still-forming praxis,
- compare them along stable axes (formation, stance, ethics, technique, metaphysics of change),
- end with a “how to use Karasu to clarify 菊次郎” research program.
1) What Karasu is (roughly) claiming in
Life Witness
Across publisher/preview blurbs, T. Byram Karasu frames therapist development as an evolution from single-school technician → transcending schools → a clinician whose presence itself becomes therapeutic.
A few load-bearing points repeatedly emphasized:
- Early phase (first 5–10 years): a young therapist anchors to one paradigm, then discovers it’s not enough for all psychopathology.
- Formation-as-person matters: broad education in literature, philosophy, spirituality is not decoration; it’s part of the therapist’s formation.
- Existential prerequisite: the therapist must find meaning/purpose (and come to terms with existential issues) to cultivate an authentic self—then “therapeutic messages” emanate naturally.
- Critical stance toward DSM-linking: he is described as sharply critiquing the relationship between DSM diagnosis and treatment indications.
- “Life Witness” reads (in summaries) as a blueprint: a developmental map from beginner to seasoned therapist.
So: Karasu is less “here are techniques” and more “what kind of person must the therapist become so technique becomes secondary.”
2) A “working non-definition” of 菊次郎十六式
From what you’ve written before, 菊次郎十六式 currently behaves like:
- 奉茶: a hospitable gesture toward exhausted travelers (clients, strangers, beings).
- Anti-identity stance: “不像蘋果的蘋果”—it resists being a standardized brand/model of therapy.
- A road-ethics sensibility: pause-ability, “not rushing,” leaving room, the “unfortunate ethical moment,” and the tenderness of small acts.
- A style of clinical metaphysics: cosmic humility, “人的復位,” “物的歸位,” and the idea that life/symptom/event is the reason-to-be (raison d’être).
Meaning: 菊次郎十六式 is (so far) more like a practice-poem or set of gestures than a codified method. And that “not-yet-what-it-is” is not a bug—it may be the core.
3) Comparative axes (where they align, where they diverge)
Axis A — What “evolution” aims at
- Karasu: evolution aims at transcendence of school and the emergence of an authentic self whose presence heals.
- 菊次郎十六式: evolution (if we can call it that) aims at 復位: returning the human stance from “manager/engineer of the psyche” to a fellow traveler who can offer tea—a re-situating rather than a mastering.
Overlap: both ultimately de-center technique and privilege who the therapist becomes.
Difference: Karasu’s telos is “authentic self/presence,” yours often sounds like “ethical posture + cosmic humility + road-kindness.”
Axis B — Relationship to “schools” and theory
- Karasu: start in one paradigm; maturity = integrate/transcend paradigms.
- 菊次郎十六式: start by distrusting the very urge to anchor; maturity may be staying unanchored without becoming empty, i.e., “不造不作” but not indifferent.
Overlap: both are post-sectarian.
Difference: Karasu still narrates a recognizable professional evolution; 菊次郎 may narrate a de-professionalizing drift—toward “鄉野村夫,” “不像治療者的治療者.”
Axis C — The therapist’s education
- Karasu: explicit call for broad formation in literature, philosophy, spirituality.
- 菊次郎十六式: already lives there—plus your additional layer: history-on-site, nature/Pleistocene, poststructuralism/schizoanalysis, decolonial ethics, van-life metaphysics.
Overlap: the clinic is not separable from world, art, and metaphysics.
Difference: Karasu’s “spiritual potential” is often framed as an enrichment of psychotherapy; yours often flips it: psychotherapy becomes one small province inside a larger cosmology/ethics of living.
Axis D — DSM, diagnosis, and the “problem of indication”
- Karasu: described as critically analyzing the DSM–treatment linkage.
- 菊次郎十六式: seems to treat diagnosis as secondary to event, wound, symptom, and the concrete ethical moment (Levinas “for him”), i.e., the question is less “what category?” and more “what kind of response is demanded here?”
Overlap: both resist rigid diagnosis → rigid technique pipelines.
Difference: Karasu critiques a professional mis-linkage; 菊次郎 reframes the whole scene as hospitality under impermanence.
Axis E — What counts as “therapy”
- Karasu: “psychotherapy is what a psychotherapist does” (as quoted in secondary material); and the endpoint is “presence itself therapeutic.”
- 菊次郎十六式: “therapy” may be what happens when someone does not demand a response yet remains responsible; a quiet roadside shrine, a cup of tea, a pause that makes life livable.
Overlap: therapy is not reducible to technique.
Difference: Karasu elevates the therapist’s being; you often elevate the gesture (and the world’s immanence) more than the therapist’s identity.
4) A useful way to
use Karasu
to clarify 菊次郎 (without freezing it)
If you want a disciplined comparison that still respects the “we don’t know what it is yet,” treat Karasu as a calibration instrument:
Step 1 — Translate Karasu’s stages into your language
- “Technician of a school” → 像蘋果的治療者 (brand-consistent, protocol-faithful).
- “Transcend schools” → 不像蘋果的蘋果 (post-school mobility).
- “Presence itself therapeutic” → 奉茶者之在場 (presence expressed as hospitality, not charisma).
Step 2 — Ask: what is the
criterion
of maturity?
Karasu’s criterion looks like: authentic self + meaning found → messages emanate naturally.
Possible 菊次郎 criterion: 復位之後的可停駐 (the ability to stop, to leave gaps, to meet the Other without extracting, to offer tea without performance).
Step 3 — Recast “Life Witness” as “World Witness”
Karasu’s “life witness” can be read as: the therapist becomes someone capable of witnessing life. Your project pushes it toward: witnessing life + history + beings + objects + ruins + roads—a wider ontology of witness.
Step 4 — Operationalize 菊次郎十六式 without defining it
Instead of “what is it?”, write 16 field-notes prompts, each a question like:
- “In this session, where did I leave a gap?”
- “Where did I unknowingly demand a response?”
- “What would ‘offering tea’ look like right now?”
- “What is trying to return to its proper place (復位) here?”
That preserves openness while producing a working method.
5) Provisional verdict
- If Life Witness: Evolution of the Psychotherapist is a developmental blueprint for becoming a therapist whose presence heals,
- then 菊次郎十六式 (as it currently appears in your writing) is a counter-blueprint: becoming a less professionally “defined” figure—more roadside, ethical, humble, gestural—where healing is inseparable from how one inhabits the world.
If you want, I can turn this into a tighter “paper-like” structure (abstract → method → comparative matrix → discussion), or draft a bilingual (EN/ZH) version for your American friend.
