Fathers in Japanese context

JAPANESE CULTURE AND FAMILY

To understand Japanese families in the cultural and historical context, two kinds of social regime have to be taken into account; 1) the era of the militarism before and during the Word War II, and 2) the economic growth or expansion after the war (Kitaoji,1971; Morioka, 1990). The society was very hierarchical under the military regime. Chinese teaching of Confucianism was used as a framework of discipline that people had to obey. The emperor was the top figure. Whatever passed down from him has to be obeyed to the letter. The relationship in any kind of group was also defined in the hierarchical order. In schools, teachers had authority that the children could not challenge nor question. So did the family relationship. The senior male was called master or a head of the family, and held an extreme power over the members of the family. The division of the labor between the genders was clearly defined; men to stay out of the family and to work for the family, women were expected to stay home and to do the household chores and child rearing.

Democracy was introduced after the war. The militarism had shifted to democracy, but the group orientation and hard working ethics remained the same. People used to work hard for the nation before the war, and for their companies after the war. This was the key in establishing a successful economy in the last fifty years. The demand for productivity, time and loyalty was paramount from all employees, particularly men at the managerial positions. But the shortcoming was the distortion and stress on the family structure. The gender pattern also remained the same. Men are supposed to work hard, staying late at night during the weekdays, and playing golf with work colleague on weekends to entertain their business partners.

As a result, mothers took on the major responsibility in child rearing, and maintained very close (often enmeshed) relationships with children not only in childhood years, but also in adolescents and young adults up to their twenties. On the other hand, the fathers remained the peripheral figure in the family, but were still expected to function as a head of the family. It is like the president of poor-functioning company or organization. The head of the organization had to be a leader without knowing what's going on.

Japanese are highly group-oriented, which can be contrasted to the individualism of the western culture. Japanese people value dependence more in a positive way (Doi, 1973). It may be just a matter of the balance of the opposite end of the scale of the personal closeness. People are connected to each other and at the same time separated to each other. These elements seem to be apart of the Japanese families for generations. Too much independence (separateness) causes isolation, as well as too much dependence (connectedness) causes enmeshed relationship (Tamura, 1992). The point where people feel most comfortable on the separated/connected continuum may differ by individual, gender and the culture. The western culture values separateness and independence, while Japanese culture values connectedness and closeness.

The differences came from the different view of the world according to their religious background. The Judeo-Christian religions are very much 'father-like' religion, whereas Buddhism and Shintoism are much like 'mother-like' religion (Doi, 1993). In Christianity, the most important relationship is between God and the individual. This relationship is said to be manifested in one’s daily life been observed by others. This Western theology also teaches that one need to be very conscious of God being watching humankind and doing good deeds define how good one is.

On the other hand, reincarnation is one of the most important messages of Buddhism. One is to be born, die and re-born again. This belief perpetuated the need to relate meaningful to all existing elements in this world particularly with another human being. The focus is on “relatedness” and “connectedness”. For example, a mosquito that annoys you or the cow that you are eating may be your friend from previous lives. So, the most important relationship is not with any form of deities, but with all the living creatures around you. Therefore, people are taught for generations to live in harmony. They are to watch over each other. One is taught that and he/she should not be conscious of the watching eyes of Buddha, but the people's who surround you. Good deeds in this sense deeds are defined in relational terms. People who can stay harmonious with others are most valued and respected.

UNDERSTANDING JAPANESE FAMILY

1. Families as closed system

Eastern tradition defined men as a head of the family. The old family law described that men could divorce their wives but women could not. They had to define the boundary of the power to maintain their power. So the family boundary was very rigid. The boss took all the responsibilities for what happened in the family. Outside agencies were not allowed to intervene in family matters. This creates difficult for any third parties (therapists, social workers, etc) to intervene with the families in crisis.

In the traditional Japanese extended family, the tie and royalty within the family system are extremely strong and well protected. Family boundary is very much closed to outsiders. Each family put on a brave face to keep information and secrets among themselves. It is a cultural shame to speak about negative aspects of the family life (e.g., mental illness, suicide and divorce) outside of the family. This patriarchal family system is very much characterized by the fathers being the boss who expects orders to be obeyed at all cause from the family members. To maintain the father's image as an authority figure, he generally remains distant from the family daily life. The traditional assumption is, if fathers became close to the children like mothers, the children would treat him like a friend and his authority would eventually be undermined.

2. Strong parent-child bond

The most important relationships in the modern Western nuclear family is believed to be between the husband and the wife. There should be clear generational boundaries, and any close relationship which overrides this boundary (e.g. mother-child) is regarded as enmeshed or coalition (Minuchin, 1974).

In Japanese traditional families, the most important relationship in the family is the cross generational relationship between the parent and the child. It is primarily between a mother and a child and the mother meeting the physical and psychological needs of the child. Physical needs here refer to cooking, clothing and helping the child with schoolwork etc… It is specially so for sons, because the first son would eventually become the head of the family for the next generation, and the aged parents had to depend on him for future care. The Father-child relationship tends to be more distant, but still important for the succession of family leadership. Sons also are expected to obtain the father's occupational skill.

It used to be the family's obligation to look after elderly people in the family. When the children are in their thirties or forties and their parents are in their fifties or sixties, their elderly can still live on without any help. Since the children are busy working and raising their own children therefore the elderly parents can live separately. When the parents get old and weak and need to be looked after by others, they often decide to live together so that the younger generation can care for the parents or parents-in-law. This re-joining is very much apart of Confucian teaching. The parents look after children when they were young, so they have obligations to respect and look after their when they become old. One can imagine the stress on both generations, as they have to readjust to each other. The emotional ties (royalty, obligation, dependency) stay very strong throughout their life cycles. This appears to be very different from families in the West where retirement homes and communities grow at a phenomenal rate.

3. Divided gender role

Often times, Japanese families consist of the combination of a close mother and a distant father relationship. Generally, men had to spend a lot of time at work and leave their wives and children home. This lifestyle had been changing rapidly in the last one hundred years, partly due to the fact it put a lot of stress on the family and caused a lot of social ills. At least up until the end of the Second World War, Japanese believed in the gender division that women ought to subordinate to men. The concept of gender equality was gradually introduced rather artificially by American influence. On the surface, people accepted gender equality as the ideal, but at the deeper level they find it hard change their traditional beliefs. So, when the Japanese economy stated to grow very rapidly since early 1960s, men gave permission to themselves to leave the house and devoted their lives to their work almost as if they were married to the company. Women also accepted the society's need to stay submissive to their husbands, gave up their social status, and become the housewives. In a larger context, the gender at all levels is still very distinct.

DEVELOPMENT OF FAMILY THERAPY IN JAPAN

The traditional form of the psychotherapy in Japan has close links with Buddhism. The “Self” is defined in relationship with Mother Nature and the ultimate goal in life is the integration of self and the world. Societal problems arise only when one lost touch with the natural flow of the wholeness. This is often contrast with the value of self-encapsulated ego or individuality in the West.

Morita therapy and Naikan therapy are the two major school of therapy originated in Japan. Their underlying theory of change is very much influenced by the Buddhism.

Both of these approaches assume the need to find and hear one’s own voice while tuning off outside voices. The voice from within oneself is considered innately good..

. A Japanese philosopher-psychiatrist Morita, at the turn of the century, applied Buddhist thinking while treating neurotic patients, which later developed as Morita therapy around 1920 (Reynolds, 1980).

The main influence from the Western schools of psychotherapy had been primarily Carl Rogers’ client centered therapy. It has some he similarities with the Japanese traditional therapies in that it accepts the clients the way they are and avoid the direct verbal confrontation. Traditional psychoanalysis had not been very popular in Japan compared to other countries. There are just a few institutions with some professionals who are trained analysts. The interpretative and insight oriented approach do not seem to be appealing to Japanese professionals.

Systemic theory was first introduced in the early 1980. The first annual meeting of the Japanese Association of Family Therapy was held in 1984 with Salvador Minuchin as a guest speaker. Number of the memberships was around four hundred when it started, then rapidly increased, and doubled in 1990. It was period of expansion in middle and late 1980. It was a time of euphoria among the professionals that they dreamed every clinical problem could be resolved with the new tool. The rate of increase dropped in 1990s when they realized family therapy could be a panacea.

Mental health professionals’ first interests to family were with schizophrenics and their families in 1970s (Makihara, 1993). Later, family therapists’ interests to schizophrenic families had shifted to psycho-educational approaches with the Western influence.

Since the early 1980s, family therapy had attempted to apply to wide variety of illness; e.g. eating disorder, conduct disorder, personality disorders, depression, and psychosomatic disorders. Among these, school phobia or behavioral problems in children and adolescents had generated professional and social interests. The 12^th congress of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professionals was held in Kyoto, Japan in 1990. The issue of school related problems in children were cross-culturally discussed (Chilland, 1990). Professionals from all orientation have to grapple with coming out with the most effective way to deal such problems related to the family.

As family therapy struggles to get away from its infancy stage in Japan, the interest in systemic work is picking up momentum. Interests in family therapy have come from professional of all orientation but the actual number of professional who claimed to practice family therapy is rather same. Some of the reasons being that:

1) Training in family system is not very well organized. Family therapy is taught in various settings; e.g. the National Institute of Mental Health, a few medical schools, child guidance center, family courts, probation offices, and private practice. Throughout the years, different agencies and institutions have conducted workshops offered by experts from overseas. David McGill and Cathy Colman came to Aoibashi Family Service in Kyoto since 1985 to do training. Matsuda Clinic in Osaka organizes a series of family therapy workshops in affiliation with Meninger Clinic, USA. The Institute of Family Systemic Consultation International in Chiba had organized annual international workshops where master therapists like Howard Liddle, Karl Tomm, Bunny Duhl, Maurizio Andolfi and Jay Haley were invited. All these courses and seminars seem to have generated a lot of curiosity in family therapy. But they are not extensive enough as a training program to train family therapists in Japan. There are very few organized training course, which include various schools of theories and practice, and clinical case supervision.

2) Theories and practices of the family therapy are borrowed from Western therapists, and we are unable to integrate some of the ideas and philosophies into Japanese culture. There are some reported practices such as Kan-no-mushi, which is a unique externalization of the internal conflict (Tomm, Suzuki & Suzuki, 1990). Other veterans Japanese therapist extended the concept of family boundary to ‘family membrane’ in order to include the fuzzy and ambiguous nature of the relationships (Kameguchi & Murphy-Shigematsu, 2001). Shimosaka, a former president of the Japanese Association of Family Therapy, was influenced by the Buddhism philosophy and systemic thinking. He extended the understanding of the relationships not only the relational term of 'self and others, ' but to include all the reciprocal relationships including even the tiny dust in the wholeness. He emphasize the importance of understanding by guts, and not by intellectual and operational term. He documented all the attitudes which are taken for granted and therefore not articulated, and called 'common sense family therapy. (Shimosaka, 1996). Family therapists can get caught up with new theories instead of clinical work, and they become rather lopsided. From the universalist position, any theory and practice can be applied to any cultural context. On the other hand, they have to be culturally sensitive to make appropriate adaptation of their theories. This is a struggle that we have here in Japan. The differences between the Japan and the West can be so enormous, which make cultural adaptation a taunting task.

3) Difficulties in motivating fathers to be involved in therapy. When the idea of family therapy was first introduced in early 1980s, one main argument was among therapists who should be involved in treatment. Others argue the severe limitations of the family therapy without inviting the entire member in the family. Most Western therapist without hesitation would require the whole family to be involved. In Japan, the mothers would come, but not the father. When a child shows any sign of problem, his or her mother would be the first to be involved. The father on the other hand would be also deeply concerned, but unfortunately his primary task is to his work and his involvement is minimal or none at all. If mother accompanied the kid to the clinic, the father has no reason to be there as well, since he is not in charge of the family affairs. In this sense he knew little about the children and the family. This is quite typical of fatherhood in Japan. Family therapists have to struggle with this pervasive trend in the past often time, with much frustration and intimidation. Fortunately, this trend has changed to some extent in the 1990s. Due to the Japanese economic depression, men do not need to work as long as they used to be. This forces them more to participate in the everyday family matters. This leads to a slight differentiation of role in the family but it is still difficult especially for men who grew up in a fatherless family.

4) The next two reasons are not specific to family therapy, but can be applied to Japanese psychotherapy in general. Unlike the medical doctors, nurses or psychiatric social workers and clinical psychologists do not have State licenses. Up until a few decades ago when psychotherapy or counseling were not our cultural repertory to solve emotional problems and clinical psychologists were mainly attached to hospitals. Their job was not recognized as a specialty skill by the government. Many psychologists had started their own office, and their needs in the society had increased in the last 20 years. But the government is slow to implement new license system for clinical psychologist. It may be implemented in the near future, but the Japanese Association of Clinical Psychology is the only gatekeeper, which issues the right to practice for qualified psychologists. This means professionalism of the psychologists is not formally recognized at the State level, and it reflects people’s disbelief toward psychotherapy, and prejudice to the emotional problem as a sign of weakness or immaturity.

5) The fee of medical doctors is counted by the point system defined by the social medical insurance. Psychotherapy is not properly counted. Some family therapy, which takes more than hour, is counted same points as the complete blood test, which takes less than five minutes. Psychiatrists can make more money by prescribing anti-depressants than by offering full psychotherapy. This time element in treatment rule out getting reimbursement for family therapy from medical insurances.

CONTEMPORARY FAMILY PROBLEMS

1. Truancy in the school system

Truancy or refusing to go to school is one of the biggest challenges for the Japanese family therapists. Children reject schools in pre-adolescence when the underlying etiology can be explained by separation anxiety from mother. But the typical cases come after adolescent age. After they show no problem at the beginning of the elementary school. Many family therapists try to explain this problem from the family dynamic perspectives. Most widely accepted hypothesis is the combination of enmeshed relationships between the child and mother, and a father who is emotionally distant from the family. The identified adolescent has a symbiotic relationship with his/her mother. Most fathers of these cases have been absent because of, for example, work commitment, marital conflict or difficult in-law relationships. They could not function as the third person and intervene with the mother-child relationship. This also created difficult for the child to form personal relationships with people outside the family. It is very interesting that they may not have problems before puberty, but as they get into the adolescent age, their relationships with friends suddenly become difficult. They become self-conscious, and the ambivalence of the sense of being accepted and the fear of rejection become an important issue. Those adolescents who have close relationship with their mothers and distant relationship with their fathers cannot regulate the distance with other people. Often they have this omnipotent illusion that their close friend can fulfill all their needs like their mothers.

Part of the reason why the school related problem is so prevalent comes from the development of Japanese school system. Parents, teachers, and society as a whole are so academic oriented. Children receive a lot of pressure for their academic achievement. School rules are very strict. Students have to wear school uniforms and have to follow books of many regulations. Many professionals in education believe that these are the main reason for the students refusing to go to school and find other ways to act out their problems.

Another reason is their limited ability to relate with other people. Most of the children who refuse schools are not actually refusing school itself. They feel relatively comfortable during the class with their teachers. All they have to do is just to sit still and passively listening or taking notes. What they feel most uncomfortable is during the break and lunchtime. They have to deal with friends spontaneously. This should be the fun part of the school for the ordinary children. Some find this to be most difficult dealing with personal relationships with friends.

2. Family Violence

Violence in the family has also been the focus of interests among family therapists. There are many forms of family violence in Japan. The type of violence, which is unique in Japanese family, is the adolescent child beating up their parents. Many of them find reasons not to go to school in spite of the strong pressure for academic achievement. The children are so frustrated, not being able to socialize in school, and violently release their internal conflict to their parents (often mothers) whom they are most closely attached to.

Other forms of family violence is child abuse. This has been regarded to be a rare phenomenon until the late 1980s (Ikeda, 1982). The abused cases were well kept under the carpet. Professionals in child guidance center could not manage the case properly because of the strong parental rights guaranteed by the civil law. Things had started to change in 1991 when volunteer groups in Osaka and Tokyo set up children’s emergency telephone for abuse victims. It came out very interestingly that the most frequent callers were not the abused children nor the third parties, but the perpetrator who is seeking help for themselves. They were typically housewives from intact families, whose husbands worked very hard and offer very little help in raising their child (Tamura, 1993). They were very isolated, and often being traumatized in childhood by their parents. The society itself has been sensitized in the last decade by the mass media which covered many incidents of serious child abuse cases. Number of abused cases reported to the child guidance center has drastically increased in the last ten years. A new child protection law was introduced in 2000, which made professionals like social workers and police easier to intervene in such abuses.

Domestic violence (men generally the perpetrator) came to the public’s attention in the last five years. Social support for battered women like shelters and feminist counseling service had been set up by governmental and non-governmental groups. Support groups for women had been started, as well as abusing men’s group. The increased in domestic violence seems to have to do with the economic depression that Japan is going through.

EXPERIENCE OF FATHERHOOD

1. Traditional father

From 1960s to the early 80s, Japanese comfortably believe that economic success was the top priority for men. Definition of masculinity then was measured primarily by their success in the workplace. The purpose and satisfaction of men’s life came solely from their work. Capable and successful persons (mostly men) are expected by their company to spend long time at work They come home very late at night only to sleep and leave early in the morning. Even on weekends, there are work-related activities. This leave them little time spend with their family. But the fathers and members of the family do not see this as a problem. Absent father in a way was a sign of successful man. This idea became a Japanese sub-culture. The mother has an unspoken responsibility of taking charge of everything in the family including child rearing. She may not feel supported by her husband, but it was regarded to be something they have to put up with.

The relationships with wives are rather distant as well. They spend small amount of time together. But they could trust each other, and believed they could understand each other without words, and without seeing each other a lot.

Their relationship with children was also distant. They spent so little time together, but the children could still hold a positive and intimate image of the absent father. After all, it was mother's job to help children to create the positive image. There was a saying that children grew up by watching the “back” of their father. Children may not be able to see their father's face, but they would have to imagine their relationship with father by just looking at the back. And this has been successful to some extent and it was cultural norm at that time anyway.

2. New type of father

In the early 90s when the Japanese economy began to fall apart, people suddenly realized that working too much created problems like suicide in the middle age and karo-shi or sudden death syndrome among workaholic men. Men came to the realization that work commitment did not provide the purpose in life any more. They looked back at family life as a possible source of happiness. Now, they had not learned how to communicate as an active member of the family since most of their fathers were also absent when they were young.

Most of the men that I encounter in family therapy appear to lost confidence and do not know how to take the role of husband/father in the family. He may try to be nice to the family and become friends to his children. As a result, he cannot excise any authority, and becomes over indulgent to the children. Or on the contrary, he may believe a father must be aggressive to be respected by the children, so he becomes abusive to the kids and rejected by his children and wife.

His wife may hold the image of the traditional family that wife/mother needs to be in charge of the family, and should not ask her husband for help. In this kind of family, the husband may try to be involved in child rearing, but his wife dominates the role. As a result, husband would gradually become peripheral after all.

The Father's difficulty continues when the children grew to be adolescent. The children become rebellious and often the father's authority. It is a very difficult job for the father to set the right amount of limit with the growing adolescence.

3. Solutions to the absent fathers

It is very difficult to engage the peripheral fathers into the family therapy session. They tend to be absent not only from family life, but also from therapy as well. They are not included in a problem resolving system. In other words, once the system has changed its configuration and the father is invited, the family problem seems to resolve automatically. It is a new experience for them to talk in the family with the father being included. This “third” factor sometimes stiffens the progress the family makes in therapy.

At time, the wife herself would resent the father’s involvement. His involvement could confuse her role. If the father is involved, she has to minimize her role as the primary care giver with the child and this can be stress for her. The question is, why need the father now? It is certainly a hard task having to share her power with

her partner. For the housewife who stays home all the time, her children are the only objects she can exercise her power.

Therapist needs to understand the structure of the Japanese family without a father. Men do not come to the therapy just because they are busy working or because of their immature personalities. It is the characteristics of the system that fathers are excluded to solve the family problem. Family members often would invalidate any action of the therapist to include the father in therapy. Therapists have to bear this in mind; otherwise they would misunderstand the reason why men do not come attend therapy.

REFERENCES

Chiland, C. ed. (1990) Why children reject school: Vies from seven countries. New Haven, Yale University Press.

Doi, L. T. (1973) The anatomy of dependence. (Translated by John Bester) Tokyo: Kodansha International

Ikeda, Y. (1982) A short introduction to child abuse in Japan. Child Abuse and Neglect 6: 487-490.

Kitaoji, H. (1971). The structure of the Japanese family. American Anthropologist, 73, 1036-1057.

Kamegchi, K., Murphy-Shigematsu, S. (2001) Family psychology and family therapy in Japan. American Psychologist 56(1): 65-70.

Makihara, H. (1993) Reflections on the tenth anniversary of the founding of JAFT (in Japanese). Japanese Journal of Family Therapy 10(2): 85-91.

Minuchin, S. (1974) Families and family therapy. London, Tavistock Publications.

Morioka, K. (1990). Demographic family changes in contemporary Japan. International Social Science Journal, 42(4), 511-522.

Reynolds, D.K. (1980) The quiet therapies. Japanese pathways to personal growth. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press.

Shimosaka, K., Shibusawa, T. (1996) Present situation of family therapy; Japan and the U.S. (in Japanese). Seishin Igaku (Psychiatry) 38(10): 1022-1034.

Tamura, T., Lau, A. (1992) Connectedness vs. Separateness: Applicability of Family Therapy to Japanese Families. Family Process 31(4):319-340.

Tamura, T. (1993) Child abuse versus school refusal; Contrasting family crisis in Britain and Japan. Bulletin of Tokyo Gakugei University VI, 45; 113-123.

Tomm, K., Suzuki, K., & Suzuki, K. (1990) The kan-no-mushi: An inner externalization that enables compromise? Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy 11(2): 104-107.

[1] A paper presented at the 13^th International Family Therapy Congress, November 14, 2001, Porto Alegre, Brazil.

[2] Associate Professor, Tokyo Gakugei University, Nukui-kita machi, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8501, Japan. E-mail: tam@u-gakugei.ac.jp. He is a child psychiatrist and family therapist. He is especially interested in adolescent crisis like school non-attendance, and gender issue (specially men’s issue) in family therapy. He is also interested in how cultural premises shape the rules of the basic human relationships in the families, which came from his experiences of one year of high school exchange program in the U.S., and three years of clinical experience in London.

Summary