Osamu Kitayama and Jhuma Basak, "Psychoanalytic Explorations into the Primal Relationship in Japan and India" (Routledge, 2025)

New Books in the Indian Ocean World · Mar 10, 2026 · 53m

In this episode of the New Books Network, I sat down with the contributors of Psychoanalytic Explorations into the Primal Relationship in Japan and India (Routledge, 2025) to discuss the profound psychic textures of the East. Moving away from the traditional Eurocentric focus on the Oedipal complex, this volume investigates the "primal relationship"—the foundational bond between mother and infant—and how it is uniquely structured within the cultural contexts of Japan and India. The authors challenge the universality of Western clinical models, proposing instead that the maternal matrix in…