Shoma Morita and
'doing what needs to be done'
We
first discovered the work of Shoma Morita
(1874-1938) in the early 1980s, when we read the
American anthropologist
David Reynolds'
book
'Playing ball on running water'. Reynolds
first discovered
Morita's work in the late 1950s when he first
visited Japan. Morita's work had never before been
written about in English. Reynolds was to become the
first translator of Morita's ideas for a Western
audience.
Shoma Morita was a
Japanese psychiatrist in the early part of the
twentieth century. A contemporary of Freud, he was
Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Jikei
University School of Medicine. His attitude to
therapy was influenced greatly by the psychological
principles of Zen Buddhism. Originally, he worked
only with people who were experiencing anxiety
neurosis. In Japan this was called shinkeishitsu.
Morita's followers have, however, extended the use
of his approach to work with people with a wide
range of problems, including people who are
terminally ill with cancer. The key focus of
Morita's work was not so much to 'get rid' of the
problem, as to help people focus on living life
fully. David Reynolds adapted Morita's work for a
Western audience, calling his approach to therapy
'Constructive Living'.
Living with Thoughts and
Feelings
In most Western cultures
feelings drive much of our actions. In CBT, for
example, the assumption is that how we think,
influences how we feel, influences how we act (or
behave). Morita took a very different view. All
feelings are natural. When people win a prize or
receive a compliment they may feel happy. When they
lose a precious possession or discover the death of
a friend, they may feel sad or 'heartbroken'.
Morita believed that there was no need to try to
change or 'fix' thoughts and feelings. Instead, we
should accept reality as it is (arugamama).
If we feel angry or depressed, fearful or lonely, we
accept these feelings - as gifts from reality - and
focus our attention on living well, by taking the
steps necessary to realise this. This way we can let
thoughts and feelings come and go - like sunshine or
storm - and continue doing what is important or
necessary in life.
Morita and the Tidal
Metaphor
Most Western forms of therapy
assume that people need to change the way they think
in order to change how they feel, so that eventually
they will act differently. People talk about their
'need to develop confidence' so that they can 'speak
in public' or 'make new friends'. This is
unnecessary, and may worsen the person's situation -
by encouraging the person to focus on thoughts and
feelings rather than action.
Morita said that:“Trying to control the
emotional self willfully by manipulative attempts is
like trying to choose a number on a thrown die or to
push back the water of the Kamo River upstream.
Certainly, they end up aggravating their agony and
feeling unbearable pain because of their failure in
manipulating the emotions.”
As David Reynolds said: Morita therapy is not
really a psychotherapeutic method for getting rid of
“symptoms”. It is more an educational method for
outgrowing our self-imposed limitations. Through Moritist methods we learn to accept the
naturalness of ourselves.”
In the Tidal Model we
encourage people to discover what they can do
when faced with different problems in living.
Reality cannot be controlled far less conquered. We
learn to swim or build a boat! If it is raining we
put up an umbrella or cover our heads with a
newspaper. Alternatively, we just get wet. However,
if we need to go to the store, we go to the store!
Therein lies the paradox. This
outlook on life is so simple that, for some people,
it is very difficult to enact. Or, perhaps we have
centuries of conditioning that leads us to believe
that we must conquer our fears, or leave our
past behind us. It is clear that many people devote
a huge amount of time to trying to do these things
(which involve playing with abstract concepts like
'fear' or 'the past') and, as a result, do not live.
Perhaps the problem is that we think and
feel too much, and do not do enough!
Arugamama and serious
problems of living
In the West it has become
popular to talk about 'evidence-based'
interventions. These are, allegedly, ways of
'treating' or 'helping' people which 'work': i.e.
achieve particular outcomes. It seems clear that
although these 'interventions' might appear to be
very helpful for some people, others are not helped
by them. Indeed, most studies show that at least
some people 'become worse'. Ultimately, we
should be asking:
When people are being fitted
for a suit of clothes, they like to choose the
material and have it fitted, closely, to their
frame. If money was no object, most people would say
that such 'bespoke tailoring' was far better than an
'off the peg' suit of clothes; especially one where
they had no choice of colour or style.
Over the past 25 years we have
used Morita's ideas in our work with a wide range of
people, with all kinds of 'mental' or 'physical'
problems: from those who were 'suicidal' or
'persecuted by voices', to those who 'took too much
drink or drugs' or were limited by some 'disability'
or 'handicap'. We always took the view that
our challenge was not to relieve people of
their problems - 'curing' them, or magically
'transforming' them. Instead, we assumed that these
people already were the best people they could be
(albeit with problems). Our challenge was to help
them find the resources within themselves to do
whatever they needed to do, to live a meaningful,
productive and constructive life.
We believe that this is what
happens around the world, day in and day out. We
pass people in the street, or work alongside them,
often oblivious to the problems in living they face,
or the fears, worries, 'hang ups' and various other
'troubles', that lie behind their outward
appearance. We assume that they are 'OK' because
they are still keeping going. As the Scots writer
Janice Galloway famously wrote: "The trick is to
keep breathing'. We should accept reality as it is (arugamama)
and keep living regardless.
There are no solutions
We do not believe that our
various problems in living need to be 'fixed' or
'solved'. rather, we need to master the trick of
'knowing our purpose': doing 'what needs to be done'
as part of leading a full and meaningful life.
People who have lost a leg or an arm, their sight or
their hearing, do this. The next person you pass in
the street may be a 'voice hearer', or 'clinically
depressed'. How would you know if they do not tell
you? If they are living life with a purpose, what
would it matter anyway?
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