Amae and the psychology of dependence

1. Introduction

Version followed: Takeo Doi's own amae framework as set out in The Anatomy of Dependence (Amae no kōzō, 1971; English trans. J. Bester, 1973), "Amae: a key concept for understanding Japanese personality structure" (Psychologia 5, 1962) and "The concept of amae and its psychoanalytic implications" (Int. Rev. Psycho-Anal. 16, 1989), with technique taken from Doi's psychoanalytic writing as organised by Sakai (2025) into an early phase (frustration-and-awareness) and a late phase (discovery through identification). Later applications (Taketomo 1986; Johnson 1993; Nishimura's group work) are flagged separately.

This is a framework, not a manualised therapy. Doi was a psychoanalyst (trained in Japan and the USA) who used amae as a lens inside ordinary psychoanalytic psychotherapy. There is no Doi manual, no session protocol, no fidelity scale, no training institute. What follows gives (a) the clinical moves Doi and his commentators actually describe and (b) a usable structure that is explicitly marked [synthesis]. [source: Wikipedia, Takeo Doi; Sakai 2025 abstract; IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary, AMAE entry]

What amae is. The noun from amaeru, which Doi glosses as "to depend and presume upon another's benevolence"; a passive wish to be loved and indulged, modelled on the infant's wish for the mother once it has realised she is separate. Doi held it is universal but that Japanese uniquely has an everyday word for it. He later called it an "instinctually derived dependency need" that is object-relational from the start and kin to Balint's passive object love and Kohut's selfobject needs. [source: Doi 1973 via Wikipedia, The Anatomy of Dependence; IPA Dictionary AMAE pp. 7, 9; Doi 1989]

How change happens (Doi). Neurotic suffering often contains an amae that cannot be expressed straightforwardly ("wanting to amaeru but unable to") and therefore comes out twisted: sulking, resentment, warped self-pity, obsessive preoccupation. In Doi's early view the therapist neither gratifies nor scolds this wish; held in the state of wanting-to-be-indulged-but-not-being-indulged, the patient becomes aware of the amae, and that awareness restores a sense of self (jibun) and lets the patient move beyond it. In his later work the emphasis shifts: the therapist identifies with the patient to discover the conflicts and feelings packed inside the amae, and a "primitive" (trusting) amae can emerge once the defensive "convoluted" amae is worked through. [source: Sakai 2025 abstract; IPA Dictionary AMAE p. 7 citing Doi 1989]

2. Framework

Doi gives no phases, session counts or stage criteria. The arc below is assembled from his concepts (convoluted → primitive amae; awareness → jibun) and the ordinary structure of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. [synthesis throughout this section unless tagged]

Format. Individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis; Doi's clinical writing assumes face-to-face or couch work with neurotic and character-disordered adults. Frequency and length are not specified in the sources [uncertain]; treat as open-ended, typically weekly or more, months to years. Group application exists (Nishimura) [source: Nishimura, ICU Educational Studies 51].

3. Guiding principles

• Amae is normal and lifelong, not pathology. Look for blocked or twisted amae, not for dependency per se. [source: Doi 1973; Nishimura] → Never frame wanting to be cared for as the problem.
• Listen to the language of feeling. Doi built the theory from everyday Japanese words for frustrated dependence. [source: Doi 1973, ch. 2 (uncertain on chapter)] → Treat the patient's emotional idioms, in any language, as clinical data.
• Most suffering shows amae indirectly. Complaints, preoccupations and resentments often carry a wish that cannot be voiced. [source: Doi 1962; Sakai 2025] → Ask "whose indulgence is this complaint aimed at?"
• Do not gratify; do not reject. Doi's early method kept the patient wanting-but-not-indulged so the wish could be noticed; he criticised his teacher Kosawa's "melting" (torokashi) approach of indulgent forgiveness. [source: Sakai 2025] → Stay warm and reliable while declining to act out the indulgence asked for.
• Awareness of amae builds self (jibun). [source: Sakai 2025; janeway article on jibun] → The aim of an interpretation is self-recognition, not insight into Japanese culture.
• Discover by identification (later Doi). [source: Sakai 2025] → Feel your way into the patient's position until the conflict inside the wish makes sense from inside.
• Distinguish primitive from convoluted amae. Primitive trusts that there is a recipient; convoluted is "not sure if there is such a recipient" and becomes wilful, demanding or self-defeating. [source: Doi 1989, quoted in Nishimura; IPA Dictionary p. 7] → Interpret the convoluted form; welcome the primitive form when it finally appears.
• Frustrated amae turns into hostility. Uramu (resentment) is the word Balint was struck by. [source: janeway article] → Read hostility, sulking and passive-aggression as possible thwarted dependency before treating them as resistance [source: Igaku-Shoin 1995 abstract].
• Ambivalence is built in. Amae mixes wish with fear of non-fulfilment. [source: Nishimura; IPA Dictionary p. 7] → Expect patients to push care away when it is offered.
• Words over unspoken understanding. Amae relies on non-verbal empathic guessing (sasshi); therapy puts the need into words. [source: Wikipedia, The Anatomy of Dependence; Nishimura] → Don't just intuit and meet the need silently; say it.
• Respect what is hidden. Doi saw therapy as a kind of hide-and-seek and wrote on omote/ura (front/back) and secrets. [source: Doi & Schwaber 2016 headings; Wikipedia, Takeo Doi; details uncertain] → Let the patient hide, notice the wish to be found, and don't strip away the private side by force.
• Culture is context, not diagnosis. The universality and Japanese specificity of amae are debated. [source: Wikipedia, Amae] → Use the concept with any patient, but never as a cultural stereotype. [synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

Doi described clinical attitudes and interpretive targets, not scripted techniques. Items 4.1–4.12 are moves Doi or his commentators describe (step-by-step operationalisation is mine unless tagged); 4.13–4.16 are later or derived applications. All example language is illustrative, not Doi's. [source for the inventory overall: Doi 1962, 1973, 1989 as reported in Sakai 2025, IPA Dictionary AMAE entry, Nishimura; operational steps = synthesis]

4.1 Listening through the amae vocabulary

• Purpose / when: From the first session onward. Doi discovered amae by noticing that Japanese has a cluster of everyday words for dependence that is blocked or twisted; these words give a map for detecting frustrated amae in any patient. [source: Doi 1973; Wikipedia, The Anatomy of Dependence]
• The map (glosses paraphrased from Doi 1973 ch. 2 [uncertain on exact wording]): amaeru – to presume on another's goodwill; suneru – to sulk, when one cannot amaeru straightforwardly; higamu – to feel slighted, warped jealousy that others are favoured; hinekureru – to turn perverse, feign indifference instead of asking; uramu – to resent the one who rejected one's amae; kodawaru – to be caught on small things because the relationship is not right; ki ga sumanai – not to feel settled or satisfied; toraware – being held prisoner by a preoccupation; wagamama – wilfulness, amae taken for granted; sumanai – "it is not finished": guilt/apology that fears loss of goodwill.
• Steps: (1) Note the patient's own idioms for disappointment, hurt and sulking, verbatim. (2) Sort each episode onto the map: was a wish to be indulged present? was it blocked (by pride, shame, fear of rejection)? what form did the blocked wish take (sulk, resentment, perversity, preoccupation)? (3) Look for repeats across relationships, including with you. (4) Keep it as working hypothesis; do not teach the patient the vocabulary unless it is their language. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "When she didn't call, you said you 'didn't care anyway.' I'm wondering whether part of you very much wanted her to notice you were hurt."
• Watch for: Over-reading every complaint as amae; using Japanese words as labels with non-Japanese patients. Working when: you can predict the form disappointment will take in the next relationship episode.

4.2 Formulation (mitate) and marking what you do not understand

• Purpose / when: Assessment and re-formulation. Doi wrote a widely used Japanese text on the interview as method (Hōhō to shite no mensetsu, 1977) and on mitate (clinical formulation); his emphasis, as commonly taught, is to locate precisely what in the patient's account cannot yet be understood. [uncertain: these works are not drawn on here; content reported from general knowledge of Japanese clinical training]
• Steps: (1) Listen for the presenting story. (2) Mark explicitly the points where the story does not make emotional sense to you ("why would that hurt so much?"). (3) Treat those gaps as the likeliest locations of hidden amae. (4) Form a provisional statement of the blocked wish, its object, and its disguise (4.1 map). (5) Revise as the transference develops. [steps = synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "I follow what happened at work, but I don't yet understand why his comment stayed with you for three days. Can we stay with that?"
• Watch for: Premature understanding (filling the gap with theory). Working when: gaps narrow and the patient starts noticing them too.

4.3 Finding the amae behind symptoms and preoccupations

• Purpose / when: Obsessional preoccupation, hypochondriacal or social-anxiety-type rumination, chronic dissatisfaction. Doi read the toraware (preoccupation) that Morita therapy described in nervous patients, and states like kodawari and ki ga sumanai, as carriers of an amae that could not be expressed. [source: Doi 1962 per Sakai 2025 summary of Doi's early clinical theory; the specific link to Morita's toraware is from Doi's writings – uncertain]
• Steps: (1) Get a detailed account of the preoccupation: when it starts, peaks, eases. (2) Ask who is present, absent or imagined at those moments. (3) Look for a relationship in which the patient hoped to be understood without asking. (4) Offer a tentative link between the preoccupation and that unspoken hope. (5) Track whether the preoccupation shifts when the wish is spoken. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "The worry about your heart seems loudest on the evenings your husband works late. I wonder if the worry is also a way of needing someone to look after you, when asking directly feels impossible."
• Watch for: Medical problems must be cleared through normal channels; do not psychologise physical symptoms without that. Working when: the patient spontaneously links preoccupation to longing.

4.4 Holding the frame: neither indulging nor rejecting

• Purpose / when: Throughout, and especially when the patient presses for special treatment, reassurance, extra time or for you to "just know" what they need. Doi's early technique deliberately left the patient in the state of wanting to amaeru but not being indulged, so the wish could be felt and recognised; he contrasted this with Kosawa's torokashi ("melting": the analyst's indulgent forgiveness dissolving the patient's resistance). [source: Sakai 2025]
• Steps: (1) Keep the ordinary frame (time, fees, contact) steady. (2) When a request for indulgence comes, register it and don't immediately grant or refuse. (3) Explore what the request means and what the patient expects you to feel. (4) Decline what would act out the wish (special arrangements, unconditional reassurance), while keeping your warmth explicit. (5) Name the frustration this creates and invite its expression. [steps = synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "I'm not going to extend the session, and I can see that lands as me not caring. Let's look at what you were hoping it would mean if I did."
• Watch for: Coldness passed off as neutrality; patients with fragile structure who need more support (see 5). Working when: frustration is spoken in the room rather than acted out (missed sessions, sulking silence).

4.5 Interpreting amae in the transference

• Purpose / when: When the patient's feelings toward you include expectations of being indulged, understood without words, or favoured. Doi wrote on amae and transference-love (heading in Doi & Schwaber 2016; Doi 1993 chapter in Person, Hagelin & Fonagy, eds.) and the IPA Dictionary notes that amae in the dyad can appear as positive transference and support the alliance. [source: PEP-Web PI.036.0171A headings; IPA Dictionary p. 10; chapter – uncertain on its argument]
• Steps: (1) Notice positive transference that has a sweet, presuming quality (assumed closeness, "you understand me"). (2) Don't interpret it early if it is carrying the alliance. (3) Interpret when it is frustrated: when you misunderstand, go on leave, or hold the frame, and the patient sulks or withdraws. (4) Link the reaction to the hoped-for indulgence, then to its history. (5) Distinguish the wish (accepted) from the demand (examined). [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "Since I mentioned my holiday you've been brief with me. I think you'd come to count on me being here without having to ask, and the holiday felt like being dropped."
• Watch for: Interpreting dependence as "regression" in a shaming way. Working when: the patient can say what they wanted from you without contempt for the wish.

4.6 Linking hostility, sulking and passive aggression to frustrated amae

• Purpose / when: Resentment (uramu), sulking (suneru), self-defeating spite, passive-aggressive non-cooperation. Balint was struck that Japanese has a word for the hostility that arises when amae is frustrated; a Japanese psychiatric report found that a therapist who did not recognise a patient's passive aggression as unmet amae lost the patient, while validating it in another case helped. [source: janeway article; Igaku-Shoin 1995 abstract]
• Steps: (1) Hear the hostility out without retaliating or rushing to interpret. (2) Identify who failed to give what. (3) Offer the link: anger as the other face of wanting to be cared for. (4) Validate the wish before examining the form it took. (5) Return to the hostility in the transference when it appears. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "You're furious with your brother, and I also hear how much you expected him to look after things without being asked."
• Watch for: Validation sliding into collusion against the other person; risk to others (see 5). Working when: anger softens into grief or a direct request.

4.7 Working with sumanai: guilt and apology as amae

• Purpose / when: Patients who apologise constantly, feel they have "bothered" others, or carry heavy guilt toward family or group. Doi read the Japanese apology sumanai/sumimasen as guilt bound up with fear of losing the other's goodwill, i.e. a relationship (amae) concern more than a moral one. [source: Doi 1973] [uncertain on detail] Nishimura's group patient's guilt about "bothering" the group was treated as a first step toward awareness of her amae. [source: Nishimura]
• Steps: (1) Note apologies and their timing. (2) Ask what the patient fears would happen without the apology. (3) Explore whether the fear is of being dropped rather than of having done wrong. (4) Name the wish to be kept in the other's good graces. (5) Help separate real responsibility from the anxiety about losing favour. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "You've said sorry three times for being late. I wonder if the real worry is that I'll stop wanting to see you."
• Watch for: Genuine guilt about real harm – don't explain it away. Working when: apology becomes proportionate and the underlying fear of rejection can be talked about.

4.8 Fostering jibun (a self) through recognition of amae

• Purpose / when: Patients who feel they have no self, live through others' expectations, or cannot say what they want. Doi tied the experience of having a self (jibun) to awareness of one's amae; in his early theory, recognising the amae is what restores the self. [source: Sakai 2025; janeway article on Doi's jibun]
• Steps: (1) When amae is recognised (4.3–4.6), slow down and ask what it is like to know one wants this. (2) Help the patient own the wish as theirs ("I want" rather than "they should"). (3) Explore choices that follow from owning it: ask directly, tolerate not receiving, look elsewhere. (4) Note moments where the patient acts from this self in daily life. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "So it's not only that he should have known. You wanted him to. What's it like to say that as yours?"
• Watch for: Pushing Western-style autonomy as the goal; Nishimura argues for "self-establishment" rather than westernisation. [source: Nishimura] Working when: the patient can depend on others and still describe their own position.

4.9 Discovery through identification (late Doi)

• Purpose / when: When interpretation of the wish feels flat or the patient experiences it as accusation. In later years Doi's aim was to discover the conflicts and feelings contained in the amae while the therapist identifies with the patient. [source: Sakai 2025]
• Steps: (1) Put yourself in the patient's position in the scene described, as fully as you can. (2) Notice what you, from there, would want and be afraid of. (3) Use that to frame tentative questions rather than conclusions. (4) Let the patient correct you; the correction is data. (5) Name the conflict (e.g. wanting closeness and fearing humiliation) rather than just the wish. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "If I imagine being in that kitchen with your mother, I think I'd want her to see how tired I was – and I'd be scared she'd say I was being childish. Is any of that close?"
• Watch for: Projecting your own wishes; over-identification that loses the frame. Working when: the patient adds detail you had not imagined.

4.10 Working through convoluted amae toward primitive amae

• Purpose / when: Narcissistic and borderline presentations; patients whose dependence is wilful, demanding, testing or self-sabotaging. Doi (1989) distinguished primitive amae, sure of its recipient, from convoluted amae, "not sure if there is such a recipient"; primitive amae appears only once narcissistic defences are worked through. Commentators link these to Balint's benign vs malignant regression. Nishimura ties chronic convoluted amae to narcissistic and borderline structure. [source: IPA Dictionary p. 7; Nishimura]
• Steps: (1) Identify the convoluted pattern: demands that can never be satisfied, tests of your care, refusal of what is offered. (2) Interpret the doubt underneath (no-one will really be there). (3) Hold the frame through repeated tests (4.4). (4) Watch for and receive quieter, trusting forms of dependence when they appear; don't interpret them away. (5) Contrast the two forms for the patient when useful. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "When I offer help you push it away, and when I don't you feel abandoned. I think somewhere you're not sure anyone can really be relied on."
• Watch for: Malignant regression (escalating demands, crises); see 5. Working when: requests become simpler and disappointment less catastrophic.

4.11 Therapy as hide-and-seek: secrets, omote and ura

• Purpose / when: Patients who conceal, keep secrets, or show a polished surface. Doi wrote "Psychotherapy as 'hide-and-seek'" and, in The Anatomy of Self (1985/1986), on omote/ura (front/back) and the place of secrets. [source: titles and topics per Wikipedia, Takeo Doi; papers – the following technique reading is uncertain] The working idea attributed to Doi: like a child in the game, the patient hides yet wishes to be found, and the therapist's job is to seek without forcing.
• Steps: (1) Accept that the patient will show a front first. (2) Notice signs of the hidden side (hesitations, jokes, changes of subject). (3) Comment on the hiding itself, not the content ("something seems to be kept back"). (4) Let the patient decide pace of disclosure. (5) When something is revealed, attend to the relief/shame of being found. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "You've started that sentence twice and stopped. You don't have to tell me now, but I notice there's something there."
• Watch for: Intrusive pursuit; ignoring secrets that bear on risk (see 5). Working when: disclosures come with relief rather than collapse.

4.12 Putting sasshi into words

• Purpose / when: Patients who expect to be understood without speaking, or who communicate need by hint and mood. Amae runs through non-verbal empathic guessing (sasshi); Nishimura found therapeutic movement came when needs and fears were linked to images and memories and reflected in words. [source: Wikipedia, The Anatomy of Dependence; Nishimura]
• Steps: (1) Notice when you are being asked to guess. (2) Say what you think the hint is, tentatively. (3) Invite the patient to say it themself. (4) Link it to memories and images. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "I think you're letting me know you'd like me to ask about your father. Could you say it to me directly?"
• Watch for: Withholding understanding as a test of the patient. Working when: patients state needs more plainly outside therapy.

4.13 Monitoring the therapist's own amae and amayakashi [mostly synthesis]

• Purpose / when: Always. Indulgence (amayakashi) can impair growth; Nishimura's group indulged a member and it backfired, and a therapist who stops indulgence may be cast as the villain. [source: Nishimura] Therapists also have amae toward patients (wish to be liked, thanked). [synthesis]
• Steps: (1) Notice urges to rescue, extend, or reassure. (2) Ask whose need it serves. (3) Notice your own sulks or resentments toward patients as signs of your frustrated amae. (4) Use supervision. [synthesis]
• Watch for: Swinging from indulgence to punitive coldness. Working when: you can decline indulgence without guilt or irritation.

4.14 Clarifying the implicit "allowance" (Taketomo) [uncertain]

• Purpose / when: Taketomo (1986) criticised Doi's definition and treated amae as metalanguage, i.e. a communicative frame. As commonly summarised, amae on this view is a mutual, often unspoken agreement to suspend ordinary restrictions between two people. [source: PEP-Web JAA.014.0525A title only; content – uncertain] The IPA Dictionary similarly describes amae as an "appeal for indulgence-allowance". [source: IPA Dictionary p. 9]
• Steps (synthesis): (1) When the patient behaves as if a rule does not apply to them with you, name the implied agreement. (2) Ask whether you were consulted about it. (3) Explore what it would mean to make the request openly.
• Example language (illustrative): "It seems we're meant to both understand that you can pay later. Can we talk about that out loud?"
• Watch for: Shaming the patient for asking. Working when: allowances are negotiated, not assumed.

4.15 Group application (Nishimura)

• Purpose / when: Therapy groups, especially with Japanese or collectivist members. [source: Nishimura]
• Steps: (1) Notice when the group indulges a member. (2) Name the member's ambivalence (wanting and fearing gratification). (3) Challenge collective indulgence while staying grounded. (4) Help the member put needs into words linked to images and memories. (5) Expect unresolved anger in the group before transference work. [source: Nishimura]
• Example language (illustrative): "The group keeps reassuring Aiko, and she seems to feel worse each time. Maybe something else is needed."
• Watch for: The leader being cast as villain. Working when: the member and group can tolerate frustration without rescuing.

4.16 Using amae as a cross-cultural formulation lens (Johnson) [synthesis]

• Purpose / when: With Japanese and other patients whose culture values interdependence; with Western patients whose dependency is shamed. Johnson's Dependency and Japanese Socialization (1993) reviews amae against Western psychoanalytic and anthropological thinking on dependency. [source: Wikipedia, The Anatomy of Dependence notes Johnson; book – uncertain on its clinical recommendations]
• Steps (synthesis): (1) Ask how dependence is viewed in the patient's family and culture. (2) Don't assume that independence is the goal. (3) Distinguish culturally sanctioned dependence from blocked or twisted amae.
• Example language (illustrative): "In your family, how was it seen when someone needed looking after?"
• Watch for: Stereotyping. Working when: the formulation fits the patient's own values.

5. Handling problems

Doi's sources say little directly about managing difficulties; most of this section is [synthesis] built on the principles above. Source-based points are tagged.

• Sulking, withdrawal, silence (suneru). Treat as amae that cannot be asked for, not as resistance to be overcome [source: principle from Doi 1973; Igaku-Shoin 1995 abstract]. Comment on the sulk gently and link it to what was hoped for from you (4.5, 4.6). Don't chase or placate. [synthesis]
• Escalating demands, testing, crises (convoluted amae / malignant regression). Keep the frame firm and predictable; interpret doubt that anyone will be there (4.10); avoid extra-frame gratification, which Doi's early theory and Nishimura's group case suggest worsens the pattern [source: Sakai 2025; Nishimura]. Agree a clear plan for out-of-session contact. [synthesis]
• Overwhelm on recognising the wish (shame, humiliation at "being childish"). Slow down; shift from interpreting the wish to identifying with the conflict (4.9); normalise amae as lifelong and universal [source: Doi 1973; Nishimura]. [synthesis on pacing]
• Non-adherence (missed sessions, late payment, not doing what was agreed). Explore it first as possible frustrated amae or an assumed allowance (4.6, 4.14) before treating it as a practical problem; then restate the frame plainly. [synthesis]
• Rupture after holding the frame ("you don't care"). Expect to be cast as the cold or villainous one when you stop indulgence [source: Nishimura]. Acknowledge the hurt, own any genuine misattunement, keep the boundary, and explore what your care was supposed to look like. [synthesis]
• Therapist indulgence that has crept in (extended sessions, special favours). Name it in supervision; reduce it gradually with explanation, not abruptly; expect a resentment response and work with it (4.6, 4.13). [synthesis]
• Patient finds "amae" alien or stereotyping. Drop the term; work with the patient's own words for wanting to be looked after (4.1). The concept's cultural specificity is contested. [source: Wikipedia, Amae] [synthesis]
• Japanese patient expects the therapist to understand without words (sasshi). Acknowledge the expectation as culturally reasonable, then work toward putting needs into words (4.12) without implying their culture is deficient; aim at "self-establishment" not westernisation [source: Nishimura]. [synthesis]
• Fragile or psychotic patients for whom frustration is destabilising. Doi's frustration-and-awareness stance is designed for neurotic-level patients [uncertain: inferred]; with more fragile patients prioritise supportive holding and use late-Doi identification (4.9) rather than deliberate non-gratification. [synthesis]
• Hostility from frustrated amae that includes threats to self or others. Shift to standard suicide and violence risk assessment and safety planning per your setting's protocol; the amae formulation can inform engagement but does not replace risk management. [synthesis]
• Secrets that bear on safety (abuse, risk). The hide-and-seek stance (4.11) of letting the patient set the pace does not apply where safeguarding duties are triggered; follow legal and professional reporting obligations. [synthesis]
• Stuck: everything interpreted as amae, nothing changes. Re-formulate (4.2): mark what you still don't understand; consider whether other dynamics (trauma, aggression, Oedipal conflict) are more central; Doi saw satisfied amae as preparing for triadic, Oedipal issues [source: janeway article]. [synthesis on application]

Sources

Sources

• Doi & Schwaber (2016), Psychoanalytic Inquiry 36:171–186 – PEP-Web (headings only)
• Doi (1962), AMAE – A Key Concept for Understanding Japanese Personality Structure, Psychologia 5:1–7 – J-STAGE record
• Doi (1989), The Concept of Amae and its Psychoanalytic Implications – PEP-Web record
• Taketomo (1986), AMAE as Metalanguage: A Critique of Doi's Theory of Amae – PEP-Web record
• Taketomo (1989), An American–Japanese Transcultural Psychoanalysis and the Issue of Teacher Transference – PEP-Web record
• IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, AMAE entry, p. 7
• IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, AMAE entry, p. 9
• IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, AMAE entry, p. 10
• Sakai (2025), Focus on "Amae" in Clinical Practice: Doi's View of Treatment and Kosawa's "Torokashi" Technique – Kyoto Bunkyo University repository (abstract)
• Nishimura, Is Love Sweet? Analysis of "Amae" and the Group Therapeutic Process – ICU Educational Studies 51
• Article on amae, Balint and jibun (Janeway import)
• Igaku-Shoin (1995) article abstract: passive-aggressive personality and amae
• The Development of "Amae" Theory and its Practice in Japanese Psychoanalysis – CiNii record
• Amae – Wikipedia
• The Anatomy of Dependence – Wikipedia
• Takeo Doi – Wikipedia
• Rose (2000), review of Young-Bruehl & Bethelard, Cherishment – Metapsychology

Books and papers cited (not drawn on unless listed above)

• Doi, T. (1971). Amae no kōzō. Tokyo: Kōbundō. English: The Anatomy of Dependence (trans. J. Bester), 1973, Kodansha International.
• Doi, T. (1985). Omote to ura. English: The Anatomy of Self: The Individual Versus Society, 1986, Kodansha International.
• Doi, T. "Psychotherapy as 'hide-and-seek'" (paper; bibliographic details not verified this session [uncertain]).
• Doi, T. (1977). Hōhō to shite no mensetsu [The interview as method]. Tokyo: Igaku-Shoin [uncertain].
• Doi, T. (1993). Amae and transference-love. In E. Person, A. Hagelin & P. Fonagy (Eds.), On Freud's "Observations on Transference-Love". Yale University Press [uncertain].
• Doi, T. (2005). Understanding Amae: The Japanese Concept of Need-Love. Global Oriental.
• Johnson, F. A. (1993). Dependency and Japanese Socialization: Psychoanalytic and Anthropological Investigations into Amae. New York University Press.
• Balint, M. (1965). Primary Love and Psycho-Analytic Technique. London: Tavistock.