Dousa-hou: A Japanese psycho-rehabilitation method for body-mind relaxation

Surender Kumar, Fukuoka-ken, Japan

Dousa-hou is a psychological rehabilitation process to promote education, health, and psychological care of the children with disabilities (Naruse, 1973, 1985, 1992). Through Dousa-hou, children with cerebral palsy improve control of their bodily movements and postures, reduce anxiety and depression caused by their disabilities, and socially interact more with others (Ogawa, 1987; Harizuka, 1992; Konno, 1993; Kumar & Harizuka, 2001). Dousa-hou works in a sequential process of intention- striving- body movements. Mothers and first-degree relatives of the child with disability received more social support through Dousa-hou therapy than usual social interactions during a one-week camp (Kim & Kumar, 2004). Dousa-hou training sessions in awareness during a bodily movement task create a mutual social interaction between a trainee and a trainer, affecting the patient’s psychological health (Naruse, 1997b). This may provide relatively better support for a patient to improve in social interactions with others in Dousa-hou training sessions. Interactions of the mothers or first-degree relatives of the patient with the child’s trainer, supervisor, other trainers, and other mothers in similar situations provide recognition of the patient’s improvements related to health, self-care, educational aspects, and daily life matters to those responsible for the child’s care and self-dependency. The trainers’ perception of the child’s social interaction improvements related to health, self-care, educational aspects, and daily life matters was differed from the mothers’ perception. Dousa-hou activities are usually performed in five steps as: 1. Zai (sitting crossed legs), 2. Hizatachi (kneeling), 3. Ritsui (standing), 4. Houkou (walking), and 5. Yurume (relaxation in lying down and in sitting postures).