What Is Needed for the Formation of Young People’s Character — Emotional Exchange and Experiences That Deeply Move and Inspire Commitment

In today's world, where superficial stability and efficiency are prioritized, the mainstream approach is to "dissociate" negative emotions and avoid hurt feelings. It is important to encourage young people to pursue experiences that move them deeply and to develop a resilience to hurt.

• The advent of a "moral over-society"
• In this day and age, it's impossible to send out an SOS.
• Relationship with work style reform
• Parents and teachers need to communicate emotionally
• Emotions and Systems
• Trends in the world of psychology
• The Numinous Experience
• A truly satisfying experience
• Supporting young people
• Adult "Soul Mission"
• A heart-pounding life

The advent of a "moral over-society"

I've been a middle and high school counselor for about 25 years, and I've found that young people today find it extremely difficult to contain and express their feelings, especially negative ones.

Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing number of young people are unable to express feelings like irritability, a sense that life is meaningless, or a desire to die.

The reason for this is that modern Japanese society has become an overly moralistic society, with an excessive emphasis on "not causing trouble to others." Young people feel that expressing negative feelings like feeling depressed, irritable, or wanting to die is "bad" and "breaks the rules" because it inconveniences others. This is true even if the other person is a teacher, parent, or friend. Inside, we

actually have many different feelings. It's natural for middle and high school students, especially, to worry. During this time, it's better not to have negative feelings, so they separate them and pretend they don't exist. Instead, they spend their time smiling on the surface and approving of each other with positive comments. This kind of culture, norms, and rules has become deeply ingrained in us. I believe this is fatal for Japan's future.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a strong culture of avoiding causing trouble to others. However, since the pandemic began, social media-centered interactions have become more prevalent, furthering this culture.

If you get too involved with people on social media, not much good happens. People say harsh things to you and you feel deeply hurt. Expressing even a little of your true feelings is met with rejection. Repeated occurrences like this have led people to believe that sharing emotions causes trouble and is best avoided to avoid being hurt. This culture is also being promoted in real-life human relationships.

The state of separating negative emotions and treating them as "non-existent" is called splitting or dissociation. This is not just true for children, but for adults today as well. We live in a society where no one wants to get involved in troublesome or cost-effective things.

This country has become an "overly moral society" where dissociation is forced upon people.

In this day and age, we can't send out an SOS

Certainly, not expressing negative emotions is a way to avoid conflict with others. This avoids hurting each other, and by adhering to the rule of not bothering others, we can spend our days comfortably. The most convenient way to get by with harmless interactions is to pretend your feelings "don't exist."

But what happens in such situations? Even if you are forced to "disappear" emotions, even if you actually have many different feelings, you are still alive, and from time to time, extremely negative feelings will well up inside you. This is natural during adolescence and young adulthood, but you may find

yourself unable to control these feelings and not know how to deal with them. In the past, people were able to express their negative feelings, such as "I'm in pain" or "I want to die." However, today, a culture has developed in which saying things like "I'm in pain" or "I want to die" is considered a bad thing that causes trouble for others.

Perhaps this is the reason for the increasing number of children committing suicide for no apparent reason—that is, dying without sending out an SOS. What's more, seemingly normal children—good grades, friendly peers, and popular with the opposite sex—seek sudden death.

In the past, suicide often had warning signs and could be managed. Around the time of the Heisei era, a student disappeared from a school in Chiba Prefecture and was found at a Shinkansen station near the Aokigahara forest. Before the student's disappearance, the student asked his homeroom teacher in the nurse's office, "Where is the Aokigahara forest?" The teacher instructed him and headed off to class, but he felt a sense of foreboding. Upon returning to the nurse's office, the student, as expected, was not there. On a visit to the student's home, a hunch led him to reach into the mailbox and find a suicide note. A major commotion ensued, and a search was launched. However, after the student had spoken to the teacher about the Aokigahara forest, the police were able to safely rescue him at the station ticket gate. While

children with these warning signs may make a fuss, schools and adults can easily deal with them. This is because the student sends out an SOS signal: "I want to die, please take care of me." However, today there is a strong tendency to view sending out an SOS as a bad thing. This is why children are reluctant to do so. Adults can't do anything about it. If they don't send out an SOS, teachers and counselors are powerless. It's no exaggeration to say that this is a "failure of education." The

reason children don't express their emotions is not only because they don't have the time to listen to adults, but also because they themselves have internalized morals and norms that say they shouldn't express their emotions, and they end up suppressing themselves. This "culture that doesn't approve of expressing emotions" is causing enormous, fatal damage, and I believe that if this culture is allowed to continue, it will destroy Japan.

Relationship with work style reform

The fact that children and young people are no longer able to express their emotions presents a huge challenge to us adults, especially those in the education field.

Currently, due to work style reform, teachers are encouraged to leave school as early as possible. Previously, it was common for junior high school teachers to stay at school until around 10 p.m. While busying themselves with the children, adults would also stay late to talk, discuss, and vent their frustrations. There was a time when this was common among teachers. Now, teachers must leave by 6 p.m. With so much work to complete,

teachers don't talk to each other in the staff room. Just as children don't share their inner thoughts with each other, teachers don't share their inner thoughts with each other either. They simply stare at their computers. This behavior is the very essence of a culture of children who don't share their emotions.

Work style reform is certainly necessary. Traditionally, endless work has been considered a virtue in the name of love for education. Correcting this practice would be a good idea. However, the current work style reform ultimately aims to achieve cost-effective working practices. If teachers try to live cost-effectively, cost-effectiveness and efficiency will dominate the entire school.

In a cost-effective society, it is more efficient to "disappear" all those messy, troublesome emotions, like wanting to die or feeling sad. The pursuit of time efficiency actually causes a lack of leeway in the educational field. When

educating and raising children, we must value "wasteful things," especially in the emotional realm. Small talk is a prime example of "wasteful things." It is in small talk that important things are often revealed. If cost-effectiveness is prioritized, the time for small talk in schools will decrease rapidly. This means that teachers will not express their feelings, and children will also become even less so. If efficiency is prioritized, emotions will not be nurtured.

What will happen in the end? People who cannot "disappear" their emotions will be cornered, with no outlet and no way to act, and the only solution they can think of is to suddenly die. I think this is a truly serious problem.

Parents and teachers need to communicate emotionally

There is only one solution: how to revive emotional exchange and sharing. Active listening is an important element, but simply raising one's voice to learn the skill of listening to children is not enough. From a child's perspective, it's difficult to open up if they're suddenly told, "Now, I'll listen to you, so tell me how you feel."

In the first place, it's difficult to express feelings unless one lives in a culture where emotional exchange and sharing is a regular occurrence. Therefore, we must first revive emotional exchange between adults, such as teachers and parents.

When I held a seminar in a rural area, a 45-year-old veteran teacher attended. He said he created SOS stickers and encouraged teachers to send out one each day. However, the younger teachers didn't use them. Just like the children, they didn't approve of sending out SOS stickers and seeking advice. To top it off, even the administrators told him not to do such a pointless thing.

However, I think this teacher had a good point. They shared their problems and helped each other. And they supported each other by doing pointless things. We need to quickly revive this culture. If we go forward 20 years from now, the generation that has been working on this will have retired, and it will be too late to recover.

Emotions and Systems

So far, I've been talking about teachers, but the counseling world faces similar challenges. Since the establishment of the national license for certified psychologists, counseling training has become more systematic, leading students to avoid unnecessary activities. There's a feeling that forcing students to do more than the required amount of work is considered harassment. In the past,

students didn't simply complete the minimum number of hours, but instead engaged in many unnecessary activities, engaging in messy clashes and emotional exchanges. This is how they grew. For example, there's a learning method known as "attending" a senior's counseling session, but fewer students now choose this option. It's possible to graduate without attending. However, being able to observe a senior's counseling session is a student privilege. In the past, positions filled up quickly when they were available, but now it's rare.

Counselors and teachers must value emotions. Even in these professions, a system-first culture has become increasingly prevalent. Prioritizing the system means abandoning emotions, because unnecessary activities are emotional. Sharing emotions is the most inefficient thing. In a society that prioritizes efficiency and systems, emotions are the first thing to be discarded.

Trends in the world of psychology

The same is true in the world of psychology. Psychology is divided into "unsystematic" psychologies such as Jungian psychology, humanistic psychology, and existential psychology, and "systematic" psychologies such as cognitive behavioral therapy and brief therapy.

"Unsystematic" psychologies deal head-on with messy emotions. Training counselors based on "unsystematic" psychologies takes an incredibly long time. They spend dozens of hours in groups listening to each other talk about their troubles. This type of psychology, which deals with messy emotions, has fallen into disuse, while "systematic" cognitive behavioral therapy and brief therapy have become increasingly dominant.

This is not to say that cognitive behavioral therapy and brief therapy are useless; their techniques are useful.

What I want to say here is that what's happening between schools of psychology, with children and teachers in schools, and among counselors is all moving in the same direction. They're all

systems-centered and efficiency-driven. What's being excluded from these approaches is messy emotions, their sharing, and existence. We have become an "overly moral society" that prioritizes systems, efficiency, and not causing trouble to others, while we have abandoned the idea of ​​mutual understanding, sharing emotions, existence, and valuing messy things and waste. I hope that somehow we can swing back to a society that values ​​messy emotions and waste, but for now, there is no hope.

Source: Compiled by the author

The Numinous Experience

The reason people can no longer face the messiness of things is likely because they don't want to get hurt. And they also don't want to deal with the pain of others. This mentality is common among adults, but especially among young people. The passion to obtain something, even if it means getting hurt, has disappeared, and the current mainstream culture is one in which people give up on having passion in order to avoid being hurt. Something huge is being lost in this.

Two experiences are important for maintaining the strong will to continue seeking something, even if it means being hurt or not being recognized. One is the experience of numinous. Jung's concept of numinous is a psychological adaptation of the theological concept of numinose, coined by Rudolf Otto. It refers to "the emotion felt when encountering something overwhelming, moving or captivating beyond reason."

Looking back on my own life, encounters with overwhelming things were important in nurturing my spirituality. I read Dazai Osamu's "No Longer Human" when I was in my third year of junior high school. To me, it seemed like a novel that criticized the world, where even people who live pure lives are forced to become "no longer human." There's a passage in the novel where the protagonist declares, "I'm no longer human," and I thought it was me who was being called no longer human. And then I thought it was society. It felt like the world itself was "no longer human," and that I, as a part of it, was also being condemned as

no longer human. The moment I realized I was no longer human, I lost track of what I should strive for. Until then, I'd been doing well as a member of society, a top student in the countryside, receiving approval from my parents, teachers, and friends. That whole self of

mine began to crumble. Suddenly, a powerful light, like the light of truth, shone from the invisible world into my brain and captured my heart. It was a powerful message, a command, that told me to "throw everything away and strive for the world of truth." It gripped my heart. This experience had a crucial impact on the formation of my personality, shaping my entire life thereafter.

While this experience changed me, what overwhelms me will vary from person to person. For example, perhaps I really liked a certain musician's concert and was struck by awe, awakening to music. This is also a numinous experience, "an experience of being captivated and awestruck by something great." It could be anything

, not just music, but also a work of art, nature, a martial artist's fierce fighting spirit, or a chef's approach to their cooking. Or, seeing your parents dedicate their lives to something and thinking, "Wow, I want to do the same, dedicate my life to something. That's a great lesson I've learned."

Being captivated and deeply moved by something absolute is an existential experience, and it's the most important experience for the formation of everyone's personality.

A truly satisfying experience

When you are captivated by something, it is important to pursue it with all your heart. It doesn't matter if it takes 10 or 20 years, how much pain you feel, or if you fail and are ridiculed. The key is to have a strong will to "get what fascinates me, no matter what." The desire for recognition prevents this.

The dominant trend in modern times is to avoid being hurt, which translates to not wanting to fail or lose others' approval. When people are afraid of failure or losing approval, they give up after trying something for a little while, saying they're bored. This may be because they're genuinely bored, but it's also because they've seen their limits after trying for a while. Whether it's writing or music, you can improve after a little while. However, after a certain amount of time, you'll hit a limit. You may lose to others and be hurt.

Are you willing to pursue it no matter what, even if it means being hurt or losing others' approval? The value of your life depends on whether you can do this.

Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist known as the author of "Man's Search for Meaning," said that there are things in life that only "you" can realize at that moment, and that these are "demands of life." Can you continue to pursue something that captures your heart, even when you are hurt or discouraged? This is what gives life meaning. In Frankl's words, "this is what life asks of us."

Supporting young people

For the development of a person's character, it is crucial to have a moving experience, even if it is something close to home, and to make the determination to pursue it wholeheartedly.

My request to adults is to expose children and young people to as many "real" things as possible so that they can find something they can become completely absorbed in. In order to pursue value, one must first come into contact with something truly valuable, the real thing. Therefore, I urge young people to come into contact with truth, goodness, and beauty and have heart-warming experiences. And if you come across a young person who is desperately seeking something but is about to give up, please support them. They will be

obsessed and fascinated by something, and continue to pursue it with determination. Through these two primal experiences, and in the course of their search, they will find what can be called their "soul's mission," something that makes them feel that "this is what I am living for." If young people can experience something that moves them deeply and makes them continue to pursue it, they will likely not so easily yearn for death.

Adult "Soul Mission"

To encounter something truly valuable, to have your heart pound, and to pursue it no matter what. To connect deeply with others and share emotions. I want to somehow revive these two things among Japanese people.

To achieve this, it is important for adults themselves to set an example. Teachers and parents themselves are sincerely pursuing something and opening up to others. The first step is for children to see this and think, "That's great." While it's

certainly good to have the experience of pursuing something that moves you deeply while you're young, I think it's fine to wait until you're over 60. The best opportunity in the second half of life to become obsessed with something and devote yourself to it is "from age 60," after you've retired and fulfilled the responsibility of supporting your family. I want adults, especially, to become truly obsessed with something and live their lives completely absorbed in fulfilling their "soul's mission."

Frankl stated that encounters between shallow people do not result in true encounters. It's okay to seek truth, goodness, beauty, and logos, even if it means being hurt. Even if you end up failing, those who have experienced genuine pursuit know "deep loneliness." Only when people who know this "deep loneliness" meet can they truly meet and develop deep emotional connections.

A heart-pounding life

It can be manga, anime, or anything else. I want people to have a heart-warming experience. I saw an animated movie about a jazz saxophonist, and I'm sure many young people were moved by it and inspired to pursue music. It's not just a comic book. Some

people may not have received enough approval as children, and may still seek it or fear being hurt. These people need a re-educational experience to heal their wounded hearts.

However, if they continue to hold on to the belief that they were unloved and remain bound by the past, their lives will become very limited. While healing their wounds, why not let go of those painful experiences and seek out something that will move them? A human

life is truly worth living if it moves them. In that sense, counselors and teachers have the fortunate job. They get to witness people overcome difficulties and grow, and they have many heart-warming experiences.

(Originally published in the February 2025 issue of EN-ICHI FORUM)

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