Jalsha's Secant

I participated in a demonstration. In Japan, for long, demonstrators have raised the red flag of the Communist, but in this demonstration, we gathered under the Japanese National Flag. At school and in the mass media, the National Flag and the National Anthem were taught to be symbols of militarism. After the Greater East Asia War, GHQ-SCAP (General Headquarters, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) forced this idea on us, and Communists inherited it. Communists occupied Japanese education and media, and controlled information overtly and covertly. Recently, the situation is changing. The Internet is the key to open the door.

The first demonstration with the national flag was held in Nagano in April 26, 2008. The torch relay for Beijin Olympic was performed there. On the Internet, a demonstration was planned to protest about the Chinese persecution to Tibet. Some hundred people came to Nagano and raised Tibetan flags with Japanese ones. Many, perhaps five thousand, Chinese came there with their own national flags. They often hit and kicked Japanese demonstrators, but policemen closed their eyes and ignored the violence. This tragedy was immediately reported on the Internet, although no mass media touched it. Japanese patriotism revived after a long interval of 63 years.

In this April, NHK (The National Broadcasting Station) provided a severely deviated documentary program about the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. In it, they reported that the Taiwanese were terribly discriminated and persecuted by the Japanese, introducing some testimonies by old people of Taiwan. It was a member of "Friends of Lee Teng-Hui Association in Japan" who noticed the lie. He knew some of the informants. He could not think that they would say such anti-Japanese things. He telephoned them and found that only a small part of interviews had adopted according to the intention of the producing staff, who were, perhaps, under the strong influence of the Chinese Communist Party. The Association introduced the fact on the Internet. Reading it, a satellite TV station dispatched a reporter to Taiwan, and he interviewed all the people who had appeared in the program. The truth was disclosed. The National Station told incredible lies to deceive people. The satellite station broadcasted all of interviews they gathered, and, at the same time, released on the Internet. Explosive arguments happened. As a conclusion, demonstrations were organized in many cities in Japan.

For two hours in the afternoon of Saturday, four hundred people walked in the center of the city to the Osaka office of the National Broadcasting Station. With many Japanese national flags, flags of Independent Taiwan, East Turkestan and Tibet flattered beautiflly on the party. It was so impressive an event. The censorship of many years was not able to destroy our natural patriotism.

In the near future, the Liberal Democratic Party will lose their seats in the House of Representatives, and hand over the government to the Democratic Party. The latter is anti-Japan. Can you believe this contradiction that a Japanese political party is anti-Japan? Actually, the boss of the party recently commented, "Japan is not a country only for the Japanese." I will have many opportunities to raise our national flag.

I stopped at Katsuragi in the way back from Tenkawa. Katsuragi is the name of a mountain and also the name of a village at the foot of the mountain. There are some old shrines. I believe that some of them were built in the early Yayoi era, three thousand years ago!

According to ancient myths, in each mountain there lives kami, the Divine, with ara-mitama, the rough spirit. When the Yayoi people came to this country, they located their village in the place where a stream flowed out of the mountain. On the alluvial cone, they made terraced paddy fields. On the top of the fields, they settled a shrine of the Divine. There a priest worshipped the Divine to change her spirit into nigi-mitama, the fine spirit. The Divine with the fine spirit was believed to provide water with the fine spirit that protected rice from diseases. The Divine of the Yayoi people was primarily the goddess of the harvest.

People did not go into the mountain, because there lived the Divine with the rough spirit who might damage human beings by her rage. Some people, who worked in the forest, as woodcutters and hunters, however, must have entered into the mountain. It was necessary to sanctify themselves by special kinds of rituals to protect themselves from the furious Divine. They used a fire as a symbol of the Divine, while the village shrines used a mirror. The religion of the village became Shintoism, and one of the mountains became Shugendô.

I suspect that Shugendô was a religion of the Jômon people. They did not know agriculture and lived on the hunting and gathering. After the Yayoi people came to this country, they learned agriculture, but still they went into the mountain. The Jômon people and the Yayoi people coexisted together and cooperated with each other. I am very proud that the Yayoi people were not cruel conquerors who tried to annihilate the natives.

From Katsuragi Village, which is located on an alluvial cone, Asuka, the oldest capital of Japan, can be seen with a sweep of the eye. The Imperial Family is thought to come to Japan in the late Yayoi period, perhaps 2,000 to 2,500 years ago, with the irrigation technology, which enabled them to cultivate the level farmland. The first emperor is said to be crowned at Asuka at February 11, 2660, B.C.E. I do not believe in this date, but, anyway, it was long ago.

According to a myth, there was a kingdom of the Katsuragi Tribe before the Imperial Family came to this land, and the both families made a contract to cooperate with each other. It seems to me that the myth reflects a historical fact to some extent. Katsuragi is located at the source of the water of Asuka. Without the worship by a priest from the Katsuragi Tribe, the Imperial Family could not get the water with the fine spirit. Actually in Kyoto, there are two shrines of the Katsuragi Tribe. They are called the upper Kamo Shrine and the lower Kamo Shrine. The upper one is located at the place where the river flows out of the mountain, and the lower one is where the river enters into the city. The river is named the Kamo River. Kamo is the family name of the priest of the Katsuragi Tribe. The Imperial Family took priests from the Katsuragi to Kyoto. Here again I am very glad to recognize that our ancestors knew how to cooperate.

Japan is a mountainous country with many streams. It is very exciting to climb up a mountain stream. Walking in the flow, climbing up waterfalls using rock-climbing skills, and, if necessary, swimming in deep pools, we can enjoy the spiritual beauty of the stream. When I was young, I was totally absorbed in the "water climbing".

There are many beautiful streams full of waterfalls in Nara Prefecture next to Osaka. It takes three or four hours to get there by car. My friends and I often visited there. Usually we arrive there in the evening, and stay by a river. We often fish trouts and roast them on a fire. Some drink; others sing. Sometimes we hear a voice of deer; sometimes we see the moon in the narrow sky between mountains. Early in the next morning, we begin to walk. All day long we play in the region of the Divine.

I say the "Divine" to translate a Japanese word, kami. Sometimes the word is translated as "god", "spirit", or "fairy". They are not exact. I prefer the word, "Divine", because it is adjective in origin. Kami is not necessarily an entity but a process. We can feel something when it appears. We do not assume some existence behind the phenomenon. The process itself is divine. Mircea Eliade called this "hierophany". He wrote: [1]

Man becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane. To designate the act of manifestation of the secred, we have proposed the term hierophany. It is a fitting term, because it does not imply anything further; it expresses no more than is implicit in its etymological content, i.e., that something sacred shows itself to us. It could be said that the history of religions - from the most primitive to the most highly developed - is constituted by a great number of hierophanies, by manifestations of sacred realities. ... In each case we are confronted by the same mysterious act - the manifestation of something of a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our world, in objects that are an integral part of our natural "profane" world.

Not only in Nara, but also in all over Japan, my team made expeditions to many streams. I wasted my young days in streams. There I learned many things that cannot be learned from the book. At last, however, the time had come. When I climbed a big waterfall of Mount Esaomantottabetsu in Hokkaido, I decided to retire from the water climbing, in 2004 at the age of 56. Muscle power was still enough, but the sense of balance was deteriorating.

After that, I only visit streams to fish for trout. For these two days I was in Tenkawa Village of Nara Prefecture. I do not enter to tributary streams with waterfalls, nor do I swim in pools. Nevertheless, the days were exciting. I arrived at the village in the evening. By a small stream I made a fire and cooked a small supper. Everything was the same as the old days. I felt the hierophany of the Divine with ara-mitama, the rough spirit. The Divine with ara-mitama, who lives in the nature, can be softened by rituals, and becomes to ones with nigi-mitama, the fine spirit. When my team entered to a branch stream to climb waterfalls, we offered up some foods to the Divine and prayed in the ancient language. If we did not do so, the Divine would rage at us. This is the basic logic of Shintoism, the Japanese traditional religion. This time, I did not perform the ritual, because I do not enter into the house of the Divine but only play in front of his gate.

In this village we can find two kinds of trout; amago (Oncorhynchus masou) and iwana (Salvelinus leucomaenis). Both are landlocked fish that live in the river and do not go down to the sea. They mature with characteristics of young fish. This is called "neoteny". Anyway they are very beautiful and, first of all, tremendously tasty. Next day I enjoyed many gifts from the Divine all day long.

[1] Eliade, Mircea: The Sacred and the Profane. Harcourt, Orlando, Florida, 1959, p.11.

Gifu is an old city along the Nagara River. The river is famous for "cormorant fishing". A fisherman ties several birds like a pelican to strings, and put them in the river. The bird holds a sweetfish (Plecoglossus altivelis) in his mouth, but he cannot swallow it because his neck is tied up. This clever method of fishing is handed down from the ancient times. Probably it was introduced from the south China in the prehistoric period. The river is also famous for trout fishing. In this season trouts called satsuki masu (Oncorhynchus masou), which are called amago before they go down to the sea, return to the river and many anglers come and try to catch them.

Gifu was a small village before Duke Dosan Saito built a castle in the sixteenth century. Duke Nobunaga Oda, his son-in-law, succeeded to the castle. He gathered merchants and made a big city. At that time, Japan was divided into many small territories. Duke Oda unified all the country after a lot of battles. After him, Prince Hideyoshi Toyotomi succeeded to the throne, and then Grand Duke Ieyasu Tokugawa won the country. Thus the civil war era was over, and the Edo era began. Still now we can find the castle of the Dukes in the middle of the city.

The recent population of the city is about 400,000. However, the economy is decreasing. Once there were many dealer shops of the fiber, but all of them has disappeared. You can see a dead street in the picture. The reason is political stupidity of the local government. Similar phenomenon can be found in all over Japan. Many local cities are dying, while a few big cities, e.g., Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Fukuoka, are vivid on the sacrifice of the smaller ones.

I gave a lecture, and 150 people came. This is a big number for me. The topic was child rearing. After two hours of talking, I accepted questions. Many people gave so many questions that I had to hurry very much. Mothers are enormously vivid even if the city is out of spirit.

I attended the Kinki Local Congress of the Japanese Society of Adlerian Psychology. Since I had retired from all the post of the society, this time I was able to participate the meeting as a common member without any official responsibility. How happy was I!

An ancient Chinese proverb: "The happiness draws many devils." In the process of preparation, a committee member often asked me for advice. Her main problem was how to organize members of a symposium. She was the boss of the academic side of this congress, and the chairperson of the symposium. She had a clear idea about presentation: She did not expect past "hard luck stories", but concrete plans to the future. Members, however, wanted to talk about their past success and failure. When she asked them to cut off their stories, they blamed her for being too autocratic. Their discussion was held on an internet bulletin board, and I was able to trace it. The long stories of the members also seemed to me unnecessary. When she tried to cut off those stories, however, some of the members became emotional. She was an extraordinary rational lady, and could not understand why people were so upset. "This is a scientific talk. The emotions are unnecessary," she said. She was embarrassed and at a loss.

In Japan, democracy is understood that "all matters shall be decided by public discussion" [1]. The idea of "democratic leadership" is not well recognized here. Even when people choose someone as a leader in election, they often claim the right to intervene in the leader's every decision. Usually, leaders are good at telepathy and predict the intention of people beforehand. As a result, the politics often fall into populism, and the policy is swaying sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left.

She, however, has no talent of telepathy, and was tough enough to insist her policy. The drama was getting more and more tragic. The relations between the leader and the members were totally vertical, as they struggled to decide who the boss was. To actualize the horizontal relationship, at first, they had to remember their own roles, and, then, to divide the work to achieve the common goal. The horizontal relationship does not mean that everyone has the same role. As Dreikurs pointed out, resistance occurs when people do not share the same goal. I advised her to reestablish the goal at first. She did so, but it was too late. Thanks to the goal alignment, the members obeyed her, but unwillingly, and the symposium was rather monotonous without any passion, even not boring.

We must learn lessons from this experience. First, the goal alignment is enormously important for collaboration. Second, the horizontal relationship is to be maintained; i.e. we should learn about democratic leadership and democratic division of work.

[1] Oath in Five Articles of The Emperor Meiji.

I went to the Division of Health Science of Osaka University Medical School to give a lecture. It is a school of the nurses. I graduated from the Division of Medical Science of the same school. The topic was the narrative based medicine (NBM). Eighty young students, most of them were girls, came to listen. The classroom was like a flower garden.

The NBM is recently introduced into Japan by Dr. Akira Nakagawa, one of my colleagues. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the biological medicine developed so much that humane communication between the patient and the medical staff became rather ignored. British physicians researched how to establish better communication in the clinical situation. They discovered many things. An example; linear questions and circular questions are distinguished. If a questioner predicts the answer of a respondent, the question is called linear, and if not, it is called circular. A sequence of linear questions makes linear conversation, which is often observed in doctor-patient relationship. Linear conversation is very efficient to gather information. Because it is constructed chiefly by the doctor's interest, it sometimes disturbs the patient to talk freely what he/she thinks. A sequence of circular questions makes circular conversation. We can often observe it in daily chattering of family members or of friends. It has no purpose to go, no conclusion to be attained, and just enjoying the conversation. The NBM found that circular conversation is useful in the clinical situation to establish more humane relationship.

For example, a doctor explains to a patient: "The result of examination shows the problem of the heart. The diagnosis is angina pectoris. It is not so dangerous disease, and we have good medicine. But, it often recurs, if you do not take care of yourself. To prevent the attack, you should..." This is typical linear conversation. If some fragrance of circular conversation is added, the doctor will talk like this: "The result of examination shows the problem of the heart. The diagnosis is angina pectoris. Do you know something about the disease?" "Hum, may I add something to your knowledge?" "Do you have any idea to improve your daily life to prevent the attack?" "How do you explain to your family about your disease?" Linear conversation is "instructive" that gives knowledge to the patient, while circular conversation is "educative" that encourages the patient to think by him/herself. Anyway, circular conversation helps us to have more humane relationship with the patient.

It is somewhat an embarrassing experience to me to talk to young people. I do not know how much they know and what they are interested in. According to their teacher, however, the content of my lecture was highly beneficial for the students. Anyway, it is not bad experience for me to share a period of time with young people, as I can get fresh energy from them.

According to Adler, the individual is socially embedded. Every sane philosopher, who has ability of judgment, should insist that the human beings are social existence. If we assume that the individual is not social, we cannot prove the inevitability of the morality. Therefore, this is assumptio non probata, fallacy of assuming the point in debate. Anyway, the individual is socially embedded, as far as we want to talk about the morality.

There are two aspects of the "embeddedness"; i.e. spatial and temporal.

Adler said [1]:

In this context, the social embeddedness is understood from the spatial aspect. An individual is contained in the present family, the family in a present nation, and the nation in the present humanity. He does not mention the history of the family or the nation.

In another place, Adler said [2]:

Here he pointed out the temporal aspect of the embeddedness. An individual is understood in the history of the family or the nation. These two viewpoints are somewhat contradictory in the history of moral science.

If we consider an individual in the spatial society without thinking its history, we can argue based on the belief on reason without taking tradition into account. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher, did this in his "Emile" [3]:

He stood against all the tradition of France, and tried to build up a new education system based on reason. Not only Rousseau but also many philosophers in the enlightened era adopted the spatial connotation of the society. It is perhaps influenced by modern science that was essentially synchronic and tried to explain changing things from non-changing elements and principles. This trend of thought is inherited in modern liberalism. The extreme liberalism, which denies all the history and tradition, often falls into anarchism. For example, Japan Teachers' Union, which is effected by radical liberalism, insists that the moral education infringes children's freedom of thought.

When we consider an individual in the temporal society, i.e. in the history, we necessarily become traditional and conservative. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a German philosopher, wrote in his "Addresses to the German Nation" [4]

He actually gave this lecture under the occupation of France. Here he declares objection to Rousseau. His argument, however, is easy to be utilized by the extreme conservatives. Actually, this article was often quoted before the Greater Asia War in Japan to defend nationalism. It is apt to limit human freedom more than necessity.

Was Adler a reformative or a conservative? There is a controversy. Every Adlerian is setting his/her position in somewhere in the midst. Someone is rather reformative, while some other is rather conservative. I was rather reformative when I was young, and now I am rather conservative. Adler was the same; the first paper, which is rather liberal, was written in 1926 at 56 years old, and the second one, which is relatively conservative, was in 1933 at 63. I do not want to insist that my position is the only proper standpoint. There are wide varieties of interpretation for Adler's opinion. Anyway, the truth is in the midst, not in the extreme.

[1] Adler, Alfred: Understanding Human Nature, translated by Colin Brett. Hazelden, Center City, Minnesota, 1998 (original 1927), p.35.
[2] Adler, Alfred: "The Progress of Mankind", in Superiority and Social Interest. Norton, New York, 1964 (original 1933), p.26.
[3] Rousseau, J-J.: Emile, ou l'education translated by Grace Roosevelt, (http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/pedagogies/rousseau/Contents2.html).
[4] Fichte, J.G.: Addresses to the German Nation, translated by R.F Jones and G.H. Turnbull, (http://www.archive.org/stream/addressestothege00fichuoft/addressestothege00fichuoft_djvu.txt)

Today we had a study group for counselors and psychotherapists. The theme was "genogram and family myths".

At ICASSI 2007 in Netherlands, Marion Balla gave a lecture on genogram [1]. It is the family tree of direct ancestors. The father and the mother are included, while their siblings are not. We talk about previous generations as possible as we remember their life events.

The family myth is researched form an Adlerian point of view by Yoji Kobayashi, a Japanese psychologist [2]. It is episodes about ancestors.

Three people made a group; one was a counselor, one was a client, and one was a writer. I joined a group and talked about my genogram and family myths. My grandmother was a beautiful girl when she was young. I give her picture at the age of 18. She had a boy friend who was a university student. Another boy, who was a merchant, wanted to marry her, and asked her father, my great-grandfather, to give her to him. Her father gave permission to the boy, perhaps, because of the boy's rich presents. At that time, the parents decided the husband of their daughter. After the marriage, he gave her a lot of presents. He traded with China, and whenever he visited China, he bought precious things, like jewels and Chinese porcelain, for her. Soon she came to love him, and forgot totally the university student. My grandfather died by tuberculosis at the age of 38. My grandmother always said, "However he was a good man, it was worthless dying so soon." From this story, I learned two things: "Take care of the health", and "The man must give tributes to the woman.

[1] Balla, Marion: The Use of Genograms in Clinical Practice. ICASSI 2007, Elspeet, Netherlands.
[2] Kobayashi, Yoji: On the Relations between the Family Myths and the Personality. Annual Report of Yokohama National University, 1997.

I wrote:

As personas are discrete with each other, we can give a name to a persona. A girl felt tense in front of people. For example, it was very difficult for her to read a textbook aloud in the class. I asked her, "Who can read a textbook well in your class?" She said, "Mari does." I asked her, "Do you like Mari?" She said, "Yes, she is my friend." I asked her, "Do you think if she helps you?" She said, "How can she help me?" I said, "Okay, you borrow her spirit." She said, "What? Her spirit!?" I said, "Yes! You can be possessed by her. If you are Mari, how will be your body sensation? Mari's spirit enters into you. Your body is changing. How do you feel?" She said, "My shoulders are softer." I said, "Good! And your neck?" She said, "My neck is softer, too." I said, "How about your stomach?" She said, "Rather hot." I said, "Good! Now, you are Mari. Read this book aloud." She did it very well. I said, "Now you have learned how to borrow Mari's spirit. Call Mari any time you read a textbook aloud." In this example, the client had a persona before I gave a name. The persona, which is named "Mari's spirit", is discrete from the persona she usually used in the classroom. There is no transitional persona between those two. If the persona, "Mari", is not contradictory with her goal striving, she can use it. We can adopt a different way to the same goal.

The "Empty Chair" method is a typical usage of the persona. A medical doctor had a problem. He was a specialist of gastroenterology. Recently he changed the workplace form a hospital to a public clinic in a rural area, and worked as a general physician. When he worked at the hospital, he was very busy and worked from early morning till late evening. Now, he was able to come home early and to have dinner with the family. He liked to be a specialist, and he also liked to be a good father. The two chairs were set for him; one is the seat of a gastroenterologist, and the other was of a father who worked as a doctor. Changing the seats, two personas discussed together. "You cannot be a specialist again, if you work for the older people at the clinic any longer." "Yes, I know. But, I am very happy to be with the family." "Are you going to throw away what you have learned?" "No, I don't think so. I am now learning something very important as a medical doctor." After all, he decided to be a general physician. He had two personas, and both of them were on the line to his goal. His goal might be "I should be capable." The gastroenterologist said, "I will be capable as a specialist." and the father said, "I will be capable as a good father." He could not choose both of them at the sama time; the situation was "either-or". Like this, there is no transitional half. Personas are discrete.

We have many personas within us. When I was a little kid, my grandmother said to me, "Don't cry! You are a boy!" Feminists may get angry, but I had a persona called, a 'boy', already at that time. I stopped crying. I have many other personas; a "father", "the first born son", a "teacher", a "psychotherapist", a "physician", etc. Sometimes they make me the "either-or" situation, though their goal is one. On the only private meaning, there are many private logics.

(The persons appearing in the photographs are Japanese Adlerians, and have nothing to do with the contents.)

Suppose there is a lady. She is a very caring mother for her children, an enormously diligent worker at her workplace, an old-fashioned obedient daughter to her parents, rather a rebellious wife to her husband, a talkative girl to her girl friends, and a stammering introvert in front of men. She looks like different persons according to the situation.

Vivian Burr, a social constructionist, wrote [1]:

Once I wrote a paper and proposed a concept called the persona [2]. An individual has many personalities, or personas. According to the situation, an individual chooses one of the personas as the lady I mentioned above.

Adler, however, wrote [3]:

Oh, no! I am a heretic. Fortunately, I learned Elsa Andriessens' theory on Life Style from Yvonne Schürer at ICASSI. Andriessens distinguishes "Private Meinung", the private meaning, and "Private Logik", the private logic. The private meaning is the striving from the felt minus to the felt plus; "I am inferior in such-and-such a part. The world is inferior in such-and-such a place. I should be such to belong to the community." The private meaning is the universal proposition about life. It is, however, too abstract to apply to actual problems. An individual therefore makes a private logic referring to the private meaning; "This is the problem. The law is like this. Okay, I will do this."

I found that the idea of the prvate logic was very similar to the concept of the persona. We have a unified core of personality; the private meaning. In actual life, however, we use many personas; the private logics. A persona is discrete from other ones, or, in other words, we have limited numbers of the private logics. One of the personas is selected according to a story. The story is sometimes called the narrative, the legend or the myth. It is a socially shared set of episodes. For example, we share the story of mothers, the story of men, the story of the Japanese, etc. The stories construct the culture.

When you communicate with another person, you act in the context of a shared story. If the antagonist adopts the same story to you, he or she can understand you. If the story is different from yours, he or she may misunderstand you. If you and the antagonist share no common story, you look crazy from him or her. This idea is post-modern, but, as I admit the core of the unified self, the private meaning, this is still Adlerian. I have written another paper [4]. I am very glad not to be burnt at the stake.

[1] Burr, Vivian: An Introduction to Social Constructionism. Routledge, London, 1995, pp.28-29.
[2] Noda, S.: The Multi-Personality Theory in Individual Psychology. The Adlerian, 15(3): 197, 2002. (Japanese)
[3] Ansbacher, H.L. and Ansbacher,R.R.: The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. Harper, New York, 1955, p.175.
[4] Noda, S.: On the Theory of Life Style. The Adlerian, 22(3), 2009, in print. (Japanese)