The third theoretical approach for evaluating the universality and variabil-

ity of the self in diverse settings is relativism. As applied to psychological

phenomena, relativism entails tzigfity differing vicws of human nature in dif-
ferent cultures, but these are analyzed within a framework entirely different
from Western individualism, each having its own internal consistency and
validity related to the indigenous culture and its social parterns. ?'he only
problem with relativism, however, is that it provides no common categories
or standards for comparison or criticism across cultures.
P e r b q s the best example of relativism in the psychological realm is Takeo
Doi's use of it in his seminal psychoanalytic work in Japan on dependency
relationships (amae) and the dual self-structure of a public and a highly pri-
vate self (ornarr/ltra).~DD jjcrrisoned psychoanalyl-ic theory because its
nofms of individualisn~are too Western-centric and its categories do not en-
compass central dimensions of the Japanese psyche. The amae kind of de-
pendency relationship, in which you presume that the other wit1 take care of
you without your having to ask or to articulate your needs, is something that
is almost completely missing in psychoanalytic theory Similarly, the dual
self-structure, in which a person" pgublic presentation of self (ornore) is ori-
ented toward fulfilling a rigorous social etiquette while maintaining a highly
private self (ura) that contains all kinds of unexpressed thoughts, fantasies,
and fcelings, parficularly ambivatem ones, is also foreign to psychoanalytic
elaborations of the self.
What Doi does maintain, however, is the psychoanalytic sensibility of ex-
ploring the inner world of Japanese people and of probing for its develop-
mental antecedents by delineating the meanings of predominant Japanese
linguistic terms. By elaborating the various facets of Japanese dependency
relationship (amde) and a duaI-self structure (ornote/ura), Doi has been abk
to formulate a culturally variable psychology of Japanese in many of its im-
portant contigurations that diff;ersradically from the psychoanalytic self of
NorAern European/North American individualism.
Doi's basic theoretical approach differs greatly from the evolutionism of
Kakar and the universalism of Ewing given his focus on the variabilities of
the Jayanese self-variabilities that he considers to be on a par MiItb those of
individualism. I-Iowever, after elaborating this modal psychology of the
Japanese, Doi searches for the universality of this kind of (amae) depen-
dency in persons in the United Staccs, H e indeed finds it: to bc present, but
in diminished form, due t o the Northern European/North American cul-
tural emphasis on self-reliance; indeed, the amae kind of dependency rela-
tionsl~ipis conceptuaIizcd in psychoanalyeic theory only in Michaef Balint's
concept of passive object love. Thus, psychological variabilities hardly pres-
ent in the Norcherrl European/North American psychological makeup are
simply not a salient part of psychoanalytic theory* And then the theory