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A Content Analysis of Life Counseling Columns
Publication Date:199203
Book title: MEDIA, CULTURE, AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN [A COLLECTION OF PAPERS]
Publisher : National Institute of Multimedia Education
A "Life Counseling" (Minoue Sodan) column is found in many Japanese newspapers and women's magazines. Readers send letters about their personal troubles, asking professional consultants for solutions.
From a sociological or social psychological point of view, life counseling in the mass media is an interesting and important clue to interpreting contemporary Japanese society and culture.
In recent years, many techniques have been devised to measure attitudes. We respect these efforts and hope for their progress. But sometimes questionnaire-and-answer type research has a weakness in that the answers are not spontaneous. People are forced to answer questions on which they are not well informed.
While the readers who write letters for life counseling are not a valid cross-section of the Japanese people, yet theirs are voluntary opinions on various problems in some detail.
Life counseling letters are not like letters to the editor. Letters to the editor contain more or less definite conclusions about something. Life counseling letters do not express any conclusion. They describe people's situations and ask authorities for a solution. Hence it may be possible, through the analysis of life counseling letters, to ascertain the problems with which people are confronted.1
"When you have any difficult personal problem, do you generally consult either family or friends?" To this question 84% of a Japanese adult population sample answered "Yes" and over 40% of those who answered "Yes" further replied that they do "as suggested by the consultant."2 Counsel is clearly an important factor in determining an individual's behavior orientation. Through various kinds of counseling, people are relieved from feelings of loneliness and instability, and by having answers from consultants they try to make the basis of their behavior more objective. The "life counseling" described in our present study, is, however, merely one type of counseling. It may be distinguished from other forms by three criteria:
(1) It is done for readers of a mass medium. The problem and its solution are published as human interest material.
(2) The consultants are not such ordinary consultants as family or friends but professional experts or authorities.
(3) Unlike legal counseling, life counseling deals with moral problems.
Surveying mass media which contain life counseling we found the following.
(1) Newspapers: 24 daily newspapers (including one nationally circulated paper the Yomiuri) have life counseling columns.
(2) Magazines: Almost every women's magazine. Popular magazines such as Heibon, Myojo, etc., have a few pages devoted to counseling.
(3) Radio: The only case is a life guidance program on Radio Tokyo.
In this article, the Yomiuri newspaper and the Heibon magazines were used for the sample. The Yomiuri is the only paper among the "big three" Japanese newspapers which has a life counseling column, and, as Professor Ikeuchi has pointed out, it was the Yomiuri which developed life counseling in the mass media. Heibon is a post-war magazine with an extraordinary circulation (over 1,000,000) among the younger gentration. Its contents are mostly movie stories and fiction.
The number of letters which those two media receive and their backgrounds are as follows:
(1) Yomiuri: Around 50 letters are received every day. The writers are about equally divided between the sexes though male clients are concentrated around the age of 25 or younger while females are generally over 30. The women's section of the Yomiuri handles the column.
(2) Heibon: The number of letters is about 50 daily. The majority of the writers are high school girls of the ages 16-19. As we shall see, the contents of their letters center around the body.
From these letters, a few are selected and published with "responsible" answers. The selection is made "to serve the common interest of the readers" (editor of the Yomiuri) or "to appeal to the young generation" (Heibon), so that we cannot infer the general trend of the content from those which are published.
In order to avoid the distortion brought about by editorial selection we borrowed approximately 200 original letters from the editor of Heibon. However, since Yomiuri has strict regulations to protect the privacy of the writers, we had to be satisfied with those letters published in the paper.
There is no valid basis for assuming that those who send letters for counseling are a representative sample of the Japanese population nor that the letters which we used in our analysis are representative of all life counseling letters. We cannot generalize from this material to the full nature of the problems from which the Japanese people are suffering. This study is an analysis of life counseling as it appeared in a few mass communications.
It is not easy to find a sound basis for classifying the content of the letters, as each problem is unique and delicate. However, we employed the following categories describing dimensions of individual and group relationships.
(a) Problems of the individual's body which may include psychosomatic problems. (Example: "How can I make my ugly legs smart?")
(b) Problem which occur in one-to-one human relations. (Example: "My boy friend is changing his mind. How can I get his love again?")
(c) Problems which occur in group or institutional situations. Is there any way to persuade them?")
Letters to the two mass communication media were classified according to this scheme and the comparative result is indicated in Table I.
Table 1. Classification of the Contents
| Yomiuri Letters | Heibon Letters | |
| (A) Physical | 22 | 143 |
| (B) One-to-one human relations | 15 | 58 |
| (C) Group human relations | 91 | 21 |
| --- | --- | |
| 128 | 222 |
We shall analyze these three types of problems in the following sections.
Characteristically the letters received by the editors of Heibon concentrate on physique; even problems of human relations are reduced by the readers to physical problems. These physical problems are, however, not medical since most of the clients complain of their physical disadvantage as an obstacle to adjusting in their human relations.
"I am working in bus transportation. But my brothers laugh at my fat legs, and for the same reason I cannot get a boy friend." "My breast is very big so I am very ashamed when I am among my friends." "The mark of a burn which I got when I was a child still remains on my face. Because of this mark I failed in love."
The clients who ask counseling on physical problems, in short, regard their physical handicap or abnormality as a disadvantage in their social activities.
Table II indicates the distribution of physical handicaps or abnormalities, at least as perceived by the letter writers.
Examples:Table 2.
| Division | Subdivision | Number | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1) Constitution | a) constitution in general (fat, short, etc.) | 13 | |
| b) Nose (small, short, red, etc.) | 11 | ||
| c) Shape of face | 6 | ||
| d) Breasts | 6 | ||
| e) Eyes | 7 | ||
| f) Legs (fat, short) | 4 | ||
| -- | |||
| 47 | |||
| 2) Configuration of face | a) skin (pimples, moles, etc.) | 10 | |
| b) color (dark) | 6 | ||
| c) hair (frizzled, etc.) | 9 | ||
| d) burns or scars | 6 | ||
| -- | |||
| 31 | |||
| 3) Psychosomatic | a) blush easily | 3 | |
| b) communication (stammer) | 4 | ||
| c) sweat profusely | 4 | ||
| -- | |||
| 11 | |||
| 4) Sex | a) sexual organ (male) | 28 | |
| b) sexual organ (female) | 15 | ||
| -- | |||
| 43 | |||
| 5) Sickness | 6 | 6 | |
| Total | 138 |
From these examples it will be clear that most of the inquiries about physique arise from assuming that a non-average physique is a disadvantage in social life.
This kind of fixation on physical conditions contains some neurotic tendencies which we shall examine later. However, this fixation is not only a problem of abnormal psychology but also a problem of Japanese culture. As the social background of concentration on physique, we may mention the following two cultural charateristics.
1) The Expression of Social Status Through Physique:In Japanese society, any given occupation or social status is apt to be expressed through a man's physical appearance. As Professor Mochizuki has said, "In Japan, when one praises another's physique, he is not talking about his physical condition itself saying, 'your status is well expressed by your physique.'" What writers to life counsellors desire is a physique suitable to their appropriate social statue.
2) The Desire for Unity of Standards:The formation of physique stereotypes is related to the single valued orientation which can be found in all aspects of Japanese culture. People are accustomed to be obedient to one single value (such as the Emperor's authority), and this obedience has been the security system for the Japanese people. Japanese cannot feel at ease when lacking clear social expectations in various situations. They want unified and ideal types for everything, and physique also is one of the objects which should be standardized.
The desire for unity of standards is not only a Japanese problem. It is found in all highly mechanized modern societies. However, in Japan it is a carry-over from the feudal ages.
In other words, clients of Heibon's life counseling suffer from the fact that they do not have average or standard physiques which the culture approves. They are eager to approach the ideal type by improving their bodily structure.
But what are these standards from the clients' point of view? It should be noted here that there exist two different cultural values in contemporary Japanese society. Because of several years of occupation by the United States, the ideals that exist may be designated Ideal-Japanese and Ideal-American. The contents of the letters convey the conflict between the ideals of physique in the two cultures.
Ideal Physique ("A" means American influenced)
| Constitution | tall "A" |
| Nose | high "A" |
| Face | round shape |
| Breast | small and large, a conflict of values |
| Legs | thin and long |
| Color | white |
| Hair | black |
Special attention should be paid to nose and breast. As to the nose, the Japanese traditional value was said to be well-shaped with medium height. (Hanasuji ga toru). So the desire of girls to make their noses high "like Elizabeth Taylor," may be regarded as an example of Americanization.
As to the breasts, the Japanese value has been smallness. But girls who complain that theirs are "too big" are also well aware of the opposite value. One of them states, "I know that some girls feel it trouble that their breasts are too small and I read that bigger ones are more attractive. But I do not know which is better".
Since most of the advertisements of cosmetics and women's clothes are illustrated by American girls, Japanese girls feel a conflict as to their ideal-type.
In Heibon, most of the problems which involve troubles in human relations concern one-to-one relations, that is boy-girl problems. Some write presenting their love-getting problems in romantic sentimental ways with dramatization of themselves. Some are full of sentimentality about broken hearts.
However, about 60% of the letters are not of this kind. They tell their stories and troubles, but their troubles are reduced to physical or biological ones. They are sex problems, not moralistic, but biological ones.
Most of the letter writers have lost their loves, but they are not asking for salve for a broken heart. Their problem is virginity.
"When I was quite ignorant about this kind of thing, I happened to have a relation with a boy. I was foolish."
"He took me to a small inn in a small town and promised that he would marry me...I came back home crying."
These girls are nervous about their lost virginity. They seem to have the traditional social norm that virginity is a most important thing for good girls who are going to marry. They are anxious about their mistake, but their concern is not moralistic or ethical nor a feeling of guilt, but biological and practical. They regret that they committed a mistake, but they formulate their problems as follows:
"Is it possible for me to marry another man without telling him my mistakes?"
"I wonder whether a man can recognize me as a non-virgin."
They do not think it is ethically wrong but disadvantageous in terms of future marriage. Some of them are afraid only of the possibility of pregnancy. In a word, the pattern of love affair inquiries is that of girls viewing the problem of virginity biologically, not ethically. This tendency may be viewed as one more example of the apres guerre generation's philosophy of carnality.3
About 70% of the letters published in Yomiuri concern problems which occur in groups or institutions. (See Table 1.) In what sort of groups do these troubles take place? Table III shows that most take place in the family.
Table 3. Groups in Which Problems Take Place
| (1) Family and kinship group | 75 |
| (2) Friends or school | 3 |
| (3) Occupational group | 3 |
| -- | |
| 81 |
Table 4. Classification of Conflicts in the Family Group
| Child about parent | 21 | |
| Parent about child | 4 | |
| --- | ||
| Total parent-children relations | 25 | |
| About parents-in-law | 5 | |
| About children-in-law | 1 | |
| --- | ||
| Total parent-children-in-law | 6 | |
| Wife about husband | 20 | |
| Husband about wife | 11 | |
| --- | ||
| Total husband-wife relations | 31 | |
| Older sibling about younger sibling | 7 | |
| Younger sibling about older sibling | 5 | |
| --- | ||
| Total brother-sister relations | 25 | |
| About relatives | 1 | |
| -- | ||
| Total | 75 | |
As pointed out by many authors, the human relations within the family are among the dominant and characteristic relations in Japanese society. It will not, therefore, be surprising that most of these problems center around family relations.
Table IV further indicates who is complaining about whom in the family as related to their status in the family.
It is evident from the Table that most of the letter writers are of inferior status in the family. This is most notable in the balance between letters from parents and children. As an expert on the Japanese family system pointed out, "the relations of parents and children were expected by the conservatives to be the last line of compromise after the family system was at least legally abolished." The following are examples of inquiries on this topic:
1) Complaints from Children about Parents:"The other day on my way from school I felt a headache and dropped in at a friend's house to take a rest. But as soon as I came back home, my father scolded me without listening to my apology: he insisted that I was late for supper."
"These days my father drinks every day, saying that he is invited to a party...but, actually he is having a special relation with a Geisha girl. I saw the other day they went to a restaurant together. I advised him several times, but he always says, 'It's not your business.'"
"Because my family is poor, I could not go to college, but anyway I think I must get a job and be independent. However, since my father has absolute authority about every domestic matter, he wants me to take a job which I do not like. The same thing happened when my elder sister found a job which he did not like. Is it approved for fathers to interfere in the choices of a child?"
2) Complaints from Wife about Husband:"We spent fourteen years together. But he has never told me the exact amount of his salary. He used to give me some money every month, but I am like a slave who must manage housekeeping with this small amount of money. Whenever I complain about this problem, he beats me."
"Twenty-five year old housewife, married four years ago. He has disappeared for past six months without notice. He might have gone with another girl."
Inquiries concerning family relationships are a natural reflection on the irrational family system.
The contents of some of the letters are so dramatic that many people doubt their authenticity. However, the letters which we obtained do not seem spurious, though subjective selections are made by the editors.
Among these letters we find several elements of interest from the point of view of abnormal social psychology. In this section we want to deal briefly with social pathological aspects of life counseling.
First of all, it should be noted most of the letters which fall into category (A) or letters about physique express a feeling of inferiority.
As we have noted, these people are nervous because some of their physical qualities are not ideal or standard. They, therefore, think of themselves as inferior persons. As a result they hesitate to write their names and addresses correctly. Most of the letters lack a return address.
Since these writers are nameless, isolated, and inferior (at least in their own view) they internalize their trouble and regard themselves as the most powerless creatures in society. This feeling of isolation and helplessness may be well explained in terms of Eric Fromm's concept of social masochism.
(1) sometimes the masochistic tendency in life counseling clients appears in the form of exhibitionism. Clients describe their physical abnormalities very precisely, especially in the case of sexual organs.
(2) The desire to become average or ideal can itself be seen as an expression of social masochism. The clients want to identify themselves with socially-approved ideals disregarding their actual and given attributes. They are not sure enough of themselves to develop their own way independently and individually.
(3) A masochistic tendency may also be seen in the relationship between clients and the "authorities" they consult. Since the consultants employed by newspapers are viewed as experts in their respective field, the fact of receiving advice means more to the clients than the advice per se. actually clients await not the consultant's advice but his orders. They cannot judge their own situations for themselves, so they want to find authorities who can judge. According to Fromm this complete reliance on experts is a symptom of social masochism. The stereotypic concluding sentence in these letters is "I don't know what I should do! Please help me."
People are looking for a magic helper from outside. In the extreme case, this tendency appears as neurosis.
"Isn't there any way I can be taller? I am worrying because I may be excluded from society." (The height of this 17 year old girl is 160 cm., which actually is average.)
"I think I had better kill myself, for I, who lost virginity, cannot get married ever."
These are the extreme cases in which the felling of insecurity became a kind of obsessive compulsive neurosis.
Again, if we may use Fromm's concept, the masochistic tendencies seen in life counseling can be generalized into the concept of "receptive orientation." (See: E. Fromm, Man For Himself, 1949, Chapter 3, Section II.) The concept of receptive orientation can also serve as an explanatory principle in the study of many other aspects of Japanese culture.
In Japanese society, there are many hierarchical compartmentalizations of social groups, and the basic human relations are based on a family or pseudo-familistic model. The Emperor has absolute authority over the people, landlords over tenants, parents over children, men over women, and so on. This kind of rule-and-obedience relationship was, and still is, the traditional Japanese social behavior pattern. The Japanese are forced to live "properly" in accordance with various external indices, such as age, sex, occupation, residence, etc. [See such frames of reference as "...like" (rashiku),"...tempered" (katagi).] In a word, individuality is suppressed by social expectations.
The give-it-up logic, which is frequently found in Japanese popular songs, is an expression of the feeling of powerlessness. And, of course, sometimes frustration is transformed into aggressiveness. Consequently, the Japanese want to find something on which they can rely. If they can find such a thing, they feel secure. In this respect, there is no difference for the Japanese people between Ideal-Japanese and Ideal-American; both are authorities approved by society. The former was dominant in the pre-war period while the latter appeared in post-war japan; but the attitude of the people to the two values was similar.
We have attempted, in the preceding sections to analyze the contents of life counseling columns. Both the technique and materials of the study are only partially valid, and it may not be altogether sound to generalize to the problems of contemporary Japanese culture from this analysis. However, the analysis seems to give us some suggestions and hints concerning the function of counseling in society.
When in trouble, people turn to counsel. Counseling is an important pattern of communication in human life. The cooperative problem-solving by the client and the consultant develops their thoughts as well as the society to which they belong. Life counseling columns lack this general value of counseling in society. The consultants in life counseling formulate a problem on an improper level.
Marxists, on the one hand, formulate problems on a wrong level in the sense that they believe every contemporary problem can be solved in terms of contradictions in capitalist society, so that such minor problems as erythrophobia of a person may be explained by them as the result of capitalism. They want to widen every personal problem situation to a social problem. On the other hand, in life counseling, every problem is narrowed down to a very personal problem. When, for instance, a trouble in a family is presented by a client, the consultant suggests "be patient" and tells her that "everything will be all right if you try to be nice to every one." Even a social problem such as unemployment is interpreted as a personal problem. They tell the client that the reason why he cannot find a job is because be is not an able man or because he is lacking in eagerness to find a job, and so forth.
Every human problem has its unique character and the level of problem solution depends on the character of the problem. This is the starting point of counseling. But contemporary counseling is completely blind in the sense that it is based on the belief that there is only one level for problem solving.
Akio Saki: Hajime Ikeuchi: Motoichi Nogami: Kazuko Tsurumi: Eiko Ohama: Nobue Sato: The Origin of Life Counselling. A Historical Survey of Life Counseling in Newspapers. Life Counseling in Postwar Europe (fortunetellers). A Content Analysis of Life Counseling as Related to communication and Discommunication Problems. As a Consultant. The Philosophy of Life Guidance (an essay).
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Document ID Number: 2606