In its occidental version, japanese psychiatry is presently facing the very problems met by the countries to which it has borrowed its models, no real care policy having been set up. The most important problem is a rapidly increasing hospitalized population, the importance of which has given rise to some concern among international associations. It will probably remain a problem for a long time, as a result of the imbalance between public and private psychiatry, but we are confident that Japan will efficiently cope with it, eventually discovering that the occidental psychiatric model, from which it has hitherto inspired, is not the very best, as far as Japan is concerned. An original psychiatric response, inspired from japanese culture remains to be discovered.