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Bathing practices in Japan illustrate some specific aspects of the relationship with the mother and the group. They are a daily ritual of transition and purification, a time for the individual identity to merge into the positive feelings of belonging to the family group, as well as to Japanese society. Bathers return to physical and psychical envelopes, to primary love, and to the concept of amae. Bathing is a regression to a matricial state of indistinction and an invitation to primal fantasies. Shinto and Buddhist mythology and practices and folk tales link bathing to Japanese identity. In spite of their virtues, bathing waters are sometimes inhabited by terrifying archaic representations.