Constructive Living

Constructive Living is a Western approach to mental health education based in large part on adaptations of two Japanese psychotherapies, Morita therapy and Naikan therapy. Constructive Living (CL) presents an educational method of approaching life realistically and thoughtfully. The action aspect of CL emphasizes accepting reality (including feelings), focusing on purposes, and doing what needs doing. The reflection aspect of CL enables us to understand the present and past more clearly and to live in recognition of the support we receive from the world.

• David K. Reynolds, Author

  David K. Reynolds is recognized as the leading Western authority on Japanese psychotherapies. He is a former faculty member of the UCLA School of Public Health, the USC School of Medicine, and the University of Houston. His books have been published by university presses (California, Chicago, Hawaii, and New York) and popular presses in the U.S., Japan, China, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. In 1988 the World Health Organization sent Dr. Reynolds to China to train psychiatrists there in Constructive Living. He currently lectures and conducts workshops around the Pacific, including approximately three months in spring and three months in fall in Japan lecturing and consulting in Japanese. He is the only non-Japanese to receive the Kora Prize and the Morita Prize by the Morita Therapy Association of Japan.

• Dr. Reynolds will turn your thinking about self-esteem upside down and inside out.
  —O Magazine, March 2001
• A delightful book that helps us take a glance at the quality of our lives and gives very practical and sensible advice for daily living. I highly recommend it to anybody who is concerned about the quality of their life.
  —Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, author of On Death and Dying
• A positive, disciplined, action-oriented strategy for personal living interpreted for our culture with skill by David Reynolds.
  —Karen Blaker, WOR-AM Radio
• There is a Japanese saying: 'Down seven times, up eight times.' This book will assist you in doing that. I recommend this little book heartily, for it focuses upon our human problems in such a way that you discover the East that is in the West.
  —Mitsuo Aoki, founder and professor emeritus, Dept. of Religion, University of Hawaii