User:Akira Ikemi/Akira Ikemi

Akira Ikemi was born 8th October, 1957 in Osaka Japan. A professor at the Faculty of Health and Well-Being at Kansai University, Akira Ikemi, Dr. Med.Sc. is a psychotherapist, counseling scholar, and a certified clinical psychologist. Having studied with the American philosopher and psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin at the University of Chicago, he is an expert on Gendlin's theory of experiencing and Focusing, a method of self-reflection that Gendlin had discovered. He advanced Gendlin's theory and practice by presenting "The Experiential Model" (theory) and "Asian Focusing Methods" (practice).

Background & Career
Akira Ikemi attended Marist Brothers International School in Kobe, Japan. He grew up in an international English speaking environment and never studied Japanese formally. He was intrigued by how deeply language affects existence and sought to discover if his "real self" existed in English or in the Japanese language. This led him to study psychology, philosophy and languages.

He double-majored in psychology and philosophy at Boston College where he took philosophy classes with prominent philosophers including Richard Cobb-Stevens, Jacques Taminiaux, and sat in on a class with Hans Georg Gadamer. He went on to the University of Chicago, where he got his masters in 1980. There he studied with Eugene Gendlin, an original phenomenological philosopher who discovered the psychotherapy method of Focusing.

Returning to Japan, he worked as a psychotherapist in a psychosomatic ward of a municipal hospital in Kitakyushu. The head of this hospital at the time was his uncle Dr. Yujiro Ikemi (Professor Emeritus Kyushu University), who had influenced his early clinical viewpoint. Dr. Yujiro Ikemi was the founder of psychosomatic medicine in Japan. Akira went on to work as an instructor and assistant professor at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, where his position was transferred from the department of epidemiology to applied physiology and then to mental health. It was here that Akira Ikemi received his doctorate in medicine (1989) studying of physiology of relaxation.

Since then, Akira Ikemi moved to Okayama University, Department of Education where he was associate professor of psychology. He then moved to Kobe College, where he was professor of psychology as well as the Dean of Academic Affairs for four years. In 2006, he moved to Kansai University, first to the Faculty of Letters, then to the Graduate Clinical Psychology Program and finally to the Faculty of Health and Well-Being in 2023.

Academic Affiliations and Awards
Akira Ikemi has served as board members of The International Focusing Institute (TIFI: headquarters in USA) and the World Association for Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counseling (WAPCEPC: headquarters in UK). He is currently chair of the steering committee of the Eugene Gendlin Research Center on Experiential Philosophy and Psychology at TIFI and a member of the editorial committee of WAPCEPC. In Japan he is a member of academic and professional associations including the Japanese Society of Humanistic Psychology, Association of Japanese Clinical Psychology, Japan Focusing Association where he previously served as Executive Director and as President.


 * Japanese Society of Humanistic Psychology Award 2020
 * Named as "Living Luminary" Journal of Humanistic Counseling (American Psychological Association) 2019
 * JMI Award (Japanese Society of Autogenic Training) 1991

Articles and Books
Akira Ikemi has written over 180 articles including books, book chapters, journal articles, encyclopedia articles, book reviews. His complete CV appears here. He has also written a novel Under the Banyan Tree (in Japanese) with Eddy Daswani. Although he has not authored a book in English, here are some of his recent book chapters and articles in English


 * Ikemi, A., Okamura, S. & Tanaka, H. (2023) The Experiencing Model: Saying What We Mean in the Context of Psychotherapy. In Severson, E. & Krycka, K. (Eds.) The Psychology and Philosophy of Eugene Gendlin: Making Sense of Contemporary Experience, Routledge.
 * Ikemi, A. (2021) Stop to Appreciate Gene's Legacy and then Step Forward: Developments from Gendlin's Focusing. In Kypriotakis. N. and Moore, J. (Eds.) Senses of Focusing Vol. 1. Eurasia Publications.
 * Ikemi, A. (2019). A Portrait of the Person Seen Through the Four Dimensions of Focusing. Journal of Humanistic Counseling 58: 232-248.
 * Ikemi, A. (2017). The radical impact of experiencing on psychotherapy theory: an examination of two kinds of crossings. Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies 16 (2) 159-172.
 * https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2017.1323668
 * Krycka, K. & Ikemi, A. (2015). Focusing-Oriented Experiential Psychotherapy: From Research to Practice. In Cain, D. (Ed.) Humanistic Psychotherapies: Handbook of Research and Practice.
 * Ikemi, A. (2014). Sunflowers, Sardines and Responsive Combodying: Three Perspectives on Embodiment. Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies 13: 19-30.