Ishu Ishiyama, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Educational and Counselling Psychology, University of British Columbia
Interviewed by Carlos P. Zalaquett, Ph.D., L.M.H.C
Department of Psychological & Social Foundations
University of South Florida, Tampa
CZ: What defines you as a person and as a professional?
II: I can't answer that (smiles). It's a loaded question. What defines me as a person and a
professional? It's such a deep question. Please give me a better idea of what you are looking for.
CZ: It's really an open question; we're looking for your self-definition as a human being
and as a professional.
II: Okay. Well, first of all, I'm a person with many imperfections, and with some strengths and
positive qualities. I'm an individual who is still learning, developing, and getting to know myself
better. What about my background? I was born, raised, and educated in Japan. I have lived in
Canada since 1973, for 33 years which is for more than half of my life. I initially came to Canada
as a visiting university student in my early 20s, with a plan of staying only for one year. After 33
years, and I'm still here!
I regularly travel back to my home country. I have learned to operate fairly smoothly over the
years in two cultural and linguistic modalities. When I return to Japan (as my first "home"
country), I see my family, old friends, and professional colleagues, and enjoy eating and
experiencing cultural events. I socialize, lecture, and write in Japanese. I feel quite competent
biculturally and bilingually, in terms of my comfort in moving back and forth between the
Japanese and mainstream Canadian cultures.
However, when I return to Canada, especially to Vancouver where I have lived for the last 20
years, I feel "at home" in a very different way from the way I feel at home in Japan. In addition
to my friends and colleagues I have here, I appreciate the space, greenery, beaches, privacy,
personal freedom, and relaxed and informal lifestyle, among many other things that I have grown
to appreciate.
CZ: You seem to feel very comfortable in both cultures. Do you plan to stay in Canada for
the rest of your life?
II: Well, I don't know. We will see. I would feel quite torn if I was forced to choose one country
over the other and live the rest of my life there. When I'm in Canada, I miss certain aspects of
Japan, and when in Japan, I miss Canada. So, even now, I'm biculturally dislocated, as well as
biculturally integrated. I think many people, who have lived in two or more cultures and had
positive or intense experiences in each given culture, would feel attached to each culture in a
unique and special way. We also develop a sense of cultural nostalgia, just as we feel nostalgic
about a certain era in our own lives.
The two cultural roots seem closely intertwined and partly fused within my body and mind.
Right now, I'm physically active and can travel back and forth across the Pacific Ocean, but what
will happen when I become less mobile? How much will I miss not being able to return to my
home country? Or, will I move back in my old age? I don't have answers to these questions yet.
Being in either country, I will always miss the other about certain things that I value. It's the
price you pay for having developed personal roots in two or more cultures. I passed the point of
no return many years ago in my acculturation and bicultural integration process in Canada. It's
irreversible. And, I value what I have acquired in Canada and incorporated into my holistic
being.
CZ: Would you describe yourself as "Japanese" or "Japanese Canadian"?
II: Cultural self-designation is tricky, and cultural identity is very complex and highly subjective.
I would call myself "Japanese in Canada" rather than "Japanese Canadian" because I'm originally
from Japan, and not a second or later generation Canadian of Japanese ancestry. I have absorbed
a lot of the Canadian or North American culture, but I would say that the Japanese culture is
closer to the core of my being. On the surface, I probably look more "Canadianized" than many
other Japanese immigrants who have lived here for many years. I hug people, display discomfort
and annoyance openly, assert myself and disagree with others, and relate to others in a casual and
informal manner. I do not really fit certain stereotypes of traditional Japanese men being dutybound, stoic, polite, and private. This may be because of my language fluency and comfort in
working in Western academic and clinical environments.
Canadian multiculturalism respects and nurtures the preservation of one's own culture of origin. I
appreciate the freedom to feel the way I do about my cultural identity, without being obliged to
assimilate to the mainstream culture. I also find comfort in the similarities between the
traditional Japanese culture and the Native ("First Nations") culture in their spiritual beliefs and
practices. Aside from the Eurocentric mainstream Canadian culture, the Canadian culture on the
whole is an inclusive and constantly shifting amalgamation of various cultural groups. Canada
has strong capability to respect and embrace not only distinct ethno-racial groups, but withingroup differences among migrants and bicultural individuals at different stages of acculturation
and identity negotiation.
CZ: Could you give me some examples or episodes about your Japanese cultural
designation?
II: Some years ago, I was invited to give a public lecture in Japan. The moderator introduced me
to the audience as a Japanese Canadian, using the term "Nikkei Kanada-jin" (Canadian person of
Japanese descent). I felt a bit annoyed inside for being treated like an outsider. Of course, he was
not wrong; I was visiting Japan on my Canadian passport. I even designate myself in a census
survey as Japanese Canadian. My head and my heart obviously had different reactions.
CZ: Mm-hmm...
I see myself as a person with very strong Japanese cultural roots, and I value and enjoy many
things Japanese: respect and consideration for others, Buddhist and Shinto ideas, sushi and other
foods, novels, cultural shows on TV, music, arts and craftsmanship, hot springs, the efficient and
punctual train system, martial arts, and many other things. Interestingly, when I watch the
Olympic games, I find myself cheering for both Japanese and Canadian athletes. However, when
these two national teams compete against each other, I'm at a loss as to which team I should
support, and end up cheering for both.
CZ: Sushi is becoming one of the most popular Asian ethnic foods in North America.
II: I agree. It's my favorite kind of food, too. In my cross-cultural counseling course at U.B.C., I
joke about my "gastrointestinal self-validation." (I've written many articles on the Self-validation
model, which I developed 20 years ago, and have discussed its use in multicultural counseling.)
Many people who are experiencing homesickness or cultural dislocation are saved momentarily
by their culturally familiar foods and their smell, texture, and appearance. Such a "cultural eating
experience" may be accompanied by happy or comforting memories of the past. Cultural identity
is validated by a tangible and holistic experience of eating ethnic food. For me, sushi is my
comfort food and rescue food. I was saying to my wife the other day: "I want to have sushi just
before I die." She said, "If you are well enough to order sushi at your death bed, you aren't going
to die." (Laughter.)
Cultural identity is not just psychological; it is embedded in our body-mind. There is a sense of
relief, comfort, and familiarity when I hear or see the Japanese language. Math is another cultural
thing that exists at a bio-sensory-neurological level. I often find myself doing math in my head
and remembering phone numbers in Japanese, and folding fingers when counting, instead of
opening them when counting. Our whole body and mind are involved here.
CZ: You said earlier, "Cultural self-designation is tricky." What did you mean by that?
II: External cultural labels are always problematic, and reflect more about the person or
institution who is classifying and attaching ethnocultural and racial labels. The question of "Are
you Japanese, Japanese Canadian, Canadian, or what?" conveys the inquirer's effort or curiosity
to peg me down to a certain category. When I sense that effort, I sometimes answer, "none of
them." I feel like saying, give me a broader framework than cultural designation. I do have
Japanese cultural roots and a partially acquired Euro-Canadian cultural orientation, but any
cultural descriptors are not sufficient to inclusively represent or summarily describe who I am.
I believe that each person, from a collectivistic or individualistic culture, has something unique
about him/her as a "special blend" or holistic integration of various personal, cultural, and other
factors. It is more than a blend of two cultures. There are other elements participating in this
holistic integration. I think I have my own unique "psychoculture." A single or dual cultural label
cannot explain the complexity and uniqueness of an individual's inner world of values, meanings,
and feelings. Nor can it accurately represent his/her unique way of blending multiple cultural
orientations. I think this is applicable to anyone.
CZ: What helped you to become the person you are?
II: Another loaded question. Let me start with the challenges I encountered in my early years in
Canada. Well, I had never dreamed of working as a university professor and counselor educator
in Canada. My original plan was to study for one year and go home. But the 1-year plan was
stretched to 2 years, 3 years, and so on. Initially, I didn't think I could go beyond the survival
mode of adjusting to another culture and language. I found it difficult to study and write exams
and papers in another language. I felt homesick. My "success identity" crumbled quickly. "I was
'somebody' back home, but now I'm 'nobody' here in Canada." (There were other Japanese
students who were smart and successful, which made me feel quite inferior.) I would say that I
had many years of challenges and struggles which made me a stronger and culturally more
flexible individual since my arrival in Canada.
CZ: Please share with us another example of the difficulties you experienced in your early
years?
II: In my first year, I could read only a few pages of a psychology textbook in one hour with a
dictionary in my hand. The glamour of studying abroad as an international student quickly went
out of the window. I had a growing suspicion that I was a hopeless case with no promise of
academic success. It was discouraging and depressing. My brain used to shut down and I had
"language fatigue." I got sleepy after reading several pages or listening to long lectures. I was
envious of my fellow Canadian students who fired bullets of smart questions and opinions in
class. Now, I have a lot of compassion for immigrants and international students who experience
language problems and lack of validation for who they are and what they have to offer in a new
culture.
CZ: How did the language fluency problem affect your counseling training?
II: Empathic communication requires both linguistic and communicative competencies. Clients
express their thoughts and feelings, sometimes congruently and other time incongruently. Their
metaphors, complex inner dynamics, and suppressed emotion need to be picked up by the
counselor. This business involves more than simple linguistic abilities.
CZ: Mm-hmm...
When I was receiving counseling training at McGill University for my master's in the mid-to-late
70's, I encountered another set of challenges. We were required to capture accurately both
explicit and implicit communications and to relate our understanding to clients effectively.
Although I had become quite fluent in English and had little problem following lectures by that
time, my communicative sensitivity was culturally and linguistically handicapped. Whether I like
it or not, I was a cross-cultural counselor who spoke with an ethnic accent to Canadian clients. I
had limited sensitivity to nuances and humor, and exercised a culturally different perspective on
things from that of the client.
One day, I was having a counseling session with a very patient and cooperative client, a
wonderful client who taught me a lot. I tried to make an empathic response, but did not correctly
understand him. My client said, "not exactly," and corrected me. Another time, he said, "Hum-mm, sort of, but what I mean is ..." Several client corrections during the same session revealed my
on-going doubt about my professional aptitude and future counseling career in an Englishspeaking world. "Perhaps, I will never be able to work successfully as a counselor here because
of my language handicap." I felt defeated. I thought that all these years of hard work would be
just wasted.
CZ: Then, how did you deal with this challenge?
II: Well, this crisis turned out to serve as a big stepping stone in my training. It forced me to
improve my interviewing skills, recognize my cultural biases and judgment, and sharpen my
nonverbal observation and intuition. One day at McGill Education Library, I ran into a
wonderfully practical book (if I remember correctly, the book is entitled Therapeutic
Interviewing by Porter, published in the 1950's). I used this book to practice empathic
understanding, day in and day out on my own, for an entire summer. You know, this was a sinkor-swim situation for me. After this, my listening and counseling skills improve drastically, and
my internship professor was quite impressed.
I'm glad I did not give up on myself. I was also very fortunate to have supportive faculty and
classmates at McGill in those. I felt valued as an individual and for my culturally unique
background and perspective on things. Among my close classmates were a Chinese Canadian
and a blind woman. Three of us who constituted a visible minority group in the program. When I
was not spontaneous in sharing my ideas and feelings in a group training session, a fellow
student kindly reframed it by saying "You seem to take much care in your choice of words and
expressions" in a non-judgmental way. It was also an invitation to be more spontaneous and less
inhibited, but I appreciated her respect for my style of communication.
CZ: You mentioned "psychoculture" earlier. It's an unfamiliar term. What do you mean
by that?
II: I started using that term over 10 years ago when I wrote a short article on intercultural
communication in the Encyclopedia of English Studies and Language Arts (1994). The term
"psychoculture" in my own use refers to an internalized "culture," a uniquely individualized
cultural system within each person, incorporating life experiences, exposure to social and
cultural forces, and other external factors into the individual's unique internal environment (such
as personality). "Personalized culture" is another way of referring to the same. Dr. Triandis'
"subjective culture" seems to focus on the internalized aspects of a formal external culture. His
notion does not seem to focus on multiple and negotiated cultures and also various personally
significant subculture experiences, in my understanding.
If I may append, what I'm referring to here is not strictly "psycho-culture," but rather "biopsycho-culture," or "personalized body-mind culture" because personalized culture is not just in
the mind but is practiced at neurophysiological and sensorimotor levels. Using an earlier
example, my psychological yearning for sushi comes with gusto-gastro-intestinal reactions and
visualization of my fingers holding chopsticks. (I'm looking for a more suitable word other than
psychoculture.)
CZ: You don't think that psychoculture is simply an internally adopted culture. Doesn't a
Chinese person, born and raised in Mainland China, for example, display many of those
Chinese cultural qualities or traits often discussed in anthropology and cultural
psychology?
II: One's psychoculture and the external encapsulating culture (and its sub-cultural components,
such as class, region, religion, and gender) have varying degrees of similarities and differences,
and we should not automatically assume that we will find a high degree of overlap or similarity
between one's internal cultural orientation and one's external culture. It is not difficult to find
"atypical," "marginalized," or "counter-cultural" persons who do not conform to culturally
stereotyped images. I think that an external label can become somewhat misleading or even
meaningless in some cases. For example, a "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" stereotype may not
fit at all to a person who traveled alone to Tibet to study Buddhism for six years and then
returned to North America to pursue a new life-way compatible with his/her belief system. This
person's psychoculture may become quite different from the mainstream home culture, in terms
of values, manners, beliefs, and lifestyles. He/she may be neither a typical "American" nor a
typical Tibetan Buddhist. He/she simple is, embracing various cultural and other influences.
CZ: So, psychoculture is something more than an introjected culture or a blend of two
cultures in this example.
II: Yes. To what extent the external culture permeates into an individual's core of being and
remains there as the modus operandi probably depends on many factors, but we cannot assume
we know something about the person simply because we know his/her external cultural
designation(s) and background information.
Who I am and what I am probably reflects a unique synergetic blend of many factors, including:
my personal dispositions, internalized aspects of Japanese and Canadian cultures, my specific
family upbringing, life events, critical choices I have made in my life, and the current stage of
my personal development.
Am I a "bicultural person"? I would say, "Yes, I'm bicultural in my life experience, cultural
exposure, competencies, and affiliation, but my being is more than just an internalized blend of
Japanese and Canadian cultural orientations." What comes to my mind is the notion of gestalt as
a synergetic meaningful whole rather than the sum total of parts.
CZ: Learning about common characteristics of the client culture is considered an
important way of increasing multicultural counselor competency. What would you say
about this?
II: It is important to have information and knowledge about client culture, but when we work
with clients, we need to be careful not to look for confirmation or dis-confirmation of expected
cultural traits in clients. We often hear comments such as: "She is this way because she grew up
in such-and-such culture." It would be problematic to make such a single-factor causal inference
and be satisfied with that explanation. Confirmatory bias can simply perpetuate cultural
stereotyping, and can impede your intention to be helpful to clients.
Human beings can be categorized conceptually, but cannot be understood or helped
categorically. I think that "psychoculture" is a valuable concept for psychologists and counselors
who work with individuals. It complements the generalizing notion of "culture." We sometimes
try to confirm our cultural stereotypes by selectively searching the confirmatory evidence, and
fail to be attentive to the discrepant or disconfirmatory information. While client cultural
background is a critically important factor to be considered in counseling, counselors need to be
extremely careful not to fall into a trap of using cultural stereotypes and confirmatory thinking.
After all, I don't think that cultural stereotyping has a strong predictive power. It offers more of a
de facto explanatory power (e.g., "He acted/felt like this because of his culture"). How much
one's identified culture of origin accounts for an event or an experience probably varies from
situation to situation and from person to person. A simplistic and biased causal explanation
seems to serve the person who is doing the explaining or theorizing more than the person whose
action or experience is being explained or theorized. I think identifying a person's culture of
origin is important but merely one way of "cutting a pie." There are other dimensional access
points for understanding complex and holistic human begins as groups and as individuals.
CZ: You were saying earlier that you did not feel like a typical Japanese.
II: As you know, the same person can be perceived differently in different contexts. Some of my
Japanese friends and colleagues, most of whom are now in their 50's, tell me that I am quite
Canadianized because of my Western way of thinking, direct manners of communication and
expression, and my casual way of dressing. On the other hand, some of North American
colleagues consider me quite Japanese for my politeness, reservation, outlook on life, and social
sensitivities to others' needs. Compared to most of my Japanese immigrant friends and
acquaintances, I feel very comfortable with North American manners of interaction, such as
hugging, joking, self-asserting, informality, talking about feelings, etc. Thanks to my counseling
training here, I not only feel comfortable with these things, but also value direct expressions and
open communication.
CZ: Have you ever been asked to rate how typically Japanese you are?
II: I've been asked if I was born in Canada, or if I'm a second or third generation Japanese
Canadian. Because I seem very comfortable in this culture and able to communicate in English
freely, many of them assume I was raised in Canada. Also, people have said: "You must be more
Canadian than Japanese since you have been here longer than the time you spent in Japan. I'd call
you a Japanese Canadian. You don't act like a typical Japanese."
When we look closely, however, nobody really fits a cultural stereotype 100%. It's a matter of
more or less, and it depends on who does the assessment. "How typically Japanese are you?" is
an interesting conversation topic, but it would be impossible to reach a consensus on the
definition of "being typically Japanese." I was jokingly telling my wife one day that I would rate
myself 75 to 80% Japanese on a bi-polar cultural identity rating scale. She, who had rated herself
at 95% Japanese, disagreed and proposed a "60%" solution to me. Needless to say, how I feel
about my cultural identity is not necessarily reflected in my observable behaviors and
appearances.
CZ: I understand you regularly attend conferences in Japan, and speak with professionals
there. Is there anything cross-cultural for you when you go to those conferences?
II: One time at a conference in Japan, I very politely expressed a different viewpoint from that of
a previous speaker. Later I learned that one of the senior conference organizers thought I was
"aggressive" because I was too direct in stating my differing opinion. (I was then a young
academic from Canada and didn't have a status high enough to challenge senior presenters in this
conference.) In North America, the same manner of expressing disagreement would have been
seen not direct enough.
I then learned to be more aware of my Westernized direct interactive style, and to observe the
culturally acceptable "rules of engagement" and act accordingly. I learned to avoid using direct
expressions of differing opinions or putting a speaker on the spot or on the defense. Instead, use
of humbling and qualifying phrases seems to be a safer approach, such as: "My understanding is
very limited. Would you please help me learn ...?" or "My focus may be off due to my limited
knowledge but ..." Another way is to praise the speaker and thanking him/her for the most part,
and then add just one sentence to invite a comment or to convey a "slightly different" view to the
speaker. (It all depends on how conservative the context is and what you status is.)
CZ: You've mentioned "bicultural competency." Has your ability to operate smoothly in
two cultures and in two languages been a natural thing after the early acculturation period
in Canada?
II: No, not really. In my early years, I seldom spoke Japanese here, and rarely visited Japan.
When I returned to Japan for the first time after four years of living and immersing myself in
Canadian culture, I felt like a foreigner in my home country at the beginning. Although I had
missed Japan badly, I initially felt very awkward and inadequate with my own mother tongue
and interaction with others. Words and expressions were not coming out smoothly, and I found
myself translating from English to Japanese in my head. When I stumbled on a word in my
inquiry for a direction at Tokyo Station, a newspaper stand attendant looked annoyed and yelled:
"Are you a foreigner? I'm too busy." I was waved off. It was a "cultural dislocation" experience
in my home country. I felt nervous speaking with strangers for a while after this incident. I had
language dysfluency anxiety.
Now, adjustment to both cultures and languages comes very easy. This is due to my frequent
visits to professional meetings, in the last 20 years or so. It seems that when I'm back in my
home culture, I blend in and my "Canadian part" takes a back seat. My colleague and friend, Dr.
Marv Westwood, said to me when we were both in Japan, "It's really good to observe you in
your home country. Your manners and even your face have become far more Japanese than I
have ever seen in Canada."
CZ: How do you negotiate with the two cultures within you?
II: Having two cultural modes of being and living within my repertoire offers an interesting
dilemma. It sometimes requires a conscious choice. I call this "cultural (or bicultural) identity
negotiation." In certain cross-cultural situations, I negotiate with three interaction strategies or
styles: (a) acting naturally as myself and not worrying about others' perceptions, (b) acting "more
Japanese," and (c) acting "more Canadian." (I'm aware that I'm using these cultural labels, thus
typologizing cultures here.) How I will act depends on the context (e.g., where I am, and whom I
am with), intended goals of my interaction, and how I really feel inside. That is, I negotiate with
myself as to which cultural manners I will display as part of our communication, and which
cultural identity others are likely to find in me. Or, I might drop the subject, and simply act as I
feel inside, and let things happen.
CZ: Can you give us a practical example?
II: For example, when I am with both a traditional Japanese guest and a casual Canadian friend, I
become aware of my bicultural identity negotiation. Well, how shall I interact with these two
culturally different individuals? I tend to go for a politer and more formal mode, instead of being
casual and informal. I think many people who work in a very multicultural environment,
especially those in formal and professional roles (e.g., diplomats, international business persons,
and cross-cultural helping professionals) are quite aware of this process. They would understand
the deliberate nature of choosing or "gear-shifting" in their interactive manners and intensity of
their projected cultural identity.
CZ: Very interesting! What challenges did you face in your path toward becoming a
bicultural person and what helped you through those challenges?
II: I'm not sure if I would call myself "a bicultural person," but I know I've developed bicultural
competencies. So let me talk about the latter point. I think that for host cultural competency to
develop, we need to have three things occurring: (a) acquisition of skills and information (e.g.,
social skills, study skills, language), (b) psychological fluency and comfort in the underlying
cultural orientation (e.g., values, worldviews, cultural logic and causality), and (c) sufficient
personal maturity to validate own cultural orientation while negotiating with and embracing the
host cultural orientation, without annihilation or abandonment of the home culture within
oneself. To a large extent, developing culturally appropriate competencies is an on-going
learning process for me. It is also paralleled by my own personal maturation.
What were the challenges I faced? Allow me to refer again to my very early years in Canada.
What comes to my mind is the first stage of conformity in the Atkinson, Morton, and Sue model
of ethnic identity development. Although I did not deny or forget my culture of origin and my
Japanese identity was intact, my external interactive style and my way of thinking and feeling
certainly went through an assimilative process. I was young and malleable. I tried to blend in and
learned to be like others. I chose not to seek contact with other Japanese persons actively. I
thought I should be spending as much time as possible practicing English.
I live with a very kind English-speaking family during my first six months in Montreal. This
home-stay experience offered a very important venue for cultural training. The family provided
me with a secure and loving home base in a new country. There were five young children, and
the parents were school teachers who were extremely understanding and supportive to me. I'm
still in close contact with them.
A romantic notion of "studying abroad" had to be quickly replaced by a more realistic one. Being
assertive, highly verbal, and self-expressive and having a clear ego boundary were necessary
conditions for social, academic, and psychological survival here. (I used to be considered
assertive compared to my peers in Japan, but the demanded levels of assertiveness and egostrength were much higher in Canada.) This is where I encountered a real challenge.
CZ: Therefore, acculturation and personal development were closely connected in your
early years in Canada.
II: Definitely. My Canadian university peers were usually busy stating their own opinions in a
very fast pace of speech, and I often got behind. Class discussions were always filled with
statements: "I think," "I feel," "I believe," "I want," and "I know." I was from a somewhat
collectivistic culture, comparatively speaking, and was used to a Confucian (vs. Socratic)
learning style. I was personally more comfortable with a harmonious communication style,
which later turned out to be very useful in counseling and group facilitation, but not in academic
discussions. I said to myself, "Wow, these guys know exactly what they think and feel inside and
are so eloquent in stating their beliefs!" I was just too busy trying to follow the discussions. I had
very little room left for formulating and stating my own opinions and conclusions. My wanting
to come up with "correct answers" sometimes acted like a brake on a free exchange of ideas with
others. I later realized that people would pay more attention to you when you use "I-statements"
or display some emotion.
So, I had to adopt a more active and assertive learning style. I had to be more individualistic, and
to be forthcoming with my likes and dislikes and free to interrupt others. As I said before, all of
these were somewhat contrary to my cultural upbringing. Forming my own opinions or knowing
my gut-level reactions and voicing them was a real challenge in my very early years in Canada.
It turned out to be good education and skills training for me to become more self-aware and
verbalize my thoughts and feelings in a precise language, and to take the ownership of my
subjective process regardless of what others might think. This was my cross-cultural social skills
training. It helped me deal with my developmental tasks of establishing my ego identity and
asserting myself, that is, knowing and expressing who I am and what I am.
CZ: You found yourself immersed in an individualistic culture. You didn't feel at home but
you had to adjust to it.
II: In a highly individualistic social environment, you have to look after your own needs and
wants. You need sufficient ego-strength, or whatever you might call, to survive and succeed.
Although I as a young developing person was attracted to this individualistic culture, I always
felt sad about the fact that individuals had to be self-assertive and self-reliant, which can be tiring
and self-alienating. An American sociologist used the term "lonely crowd." Being dependent or
being enmeshed in mutual support is still treated as a sign of weakness or pathology. Maybe, this
is the difference in value orientation between individual psychology and community psychology.
It would be nicer and healthier to have a community where members are there for each other and
they don't necessarily have to be so "ego-strong" and fight for the fulfillment of their own needs
and wants over those of the others.
I may be a bit off the topic here, but I have concerns about the lack of respect shown for older
people in general in this culture. I find that North American culture, especially in urban areas,
does not value the contribution and wisdom of older people. Instead, it places so much emphasis
on youthfulness and physical prowess. The English language is very limited in its vocabulary for
honorifics and conveyance of respect. I think older and more life-experienced persons should be
treated with respect and be recognized their experience and wisdom within local communities.
That would also put more social and ethical responsibility on them in terms of their potential role
in serving as role models and educating the young.
CZ: You acquired cultural competencies necessary for your academic and career pursuit in
Canada. Where was your "Japanese cultural self" all this time?
II: The second and third stages of Atkinson et al.'s model are "dissonance" and then "resistance
(to host culture) and immersion (in culture of origin)." My acculturation experience does not
entirely follow this ethnic identify model, but there are some similar themes. What paralleled my
acculturative learning and attempts was the on-going validation of my "cultural self" by the
people around me. In the early 1970's, there weren't many Asian immigrants or international
students in Montreal. The people around me were sincerely interested in my cultural background.
I acted like a self-appointed cultural ambassador, and you know, I really enjoyed it. It felt good
that people valued my culture of origin, and I tried to explain the Japanese culture and traditions.
I was forced to study my own culture in preparation. While I was a student who was struggling
with studies and a language handicap, I was placed in a teaching role. An underdog became a
top-dog momentarily. I was asked to give Japanese language and cultural lessons. I was invited
to teach Aikido and ended up heading a successful local club, with only a second degree
blackbelt and no previous teaching experience at that time. These experiences were very
validating to me, saved my self-esteem and self-confidence, and helped me appreciate and
maintain my strong Japanese cultural identity.
CZ: Thank you for sharing your reflections on your cross-cultural experience, in this part
of our interview. Is there anything else you wish to say?
II: Having lived in Canada for 33 years and having struggled academically and culturally, I've
developed compassion for other cultural migrants and international students as well as other
minorities in society. I can relate to their personal experience of various difficulties and stages of
development, and their need for validation. When we have international students in our graduate
program, I have a strong desire to be supportive of them. I also feel for those who are struggling
with racial and cultural discrimination, bicultural identity issues, and challenges in acquiring
language fluency and cultural competencies. My own life experiences and the stories that others
have shared with me have taught me a lot about life, people, culture, and identity. I continue to
enjoy living here and being able to fly back to Japan several times a year. I'm glad I chose to stay
in Canada, and am thankful that I can enjoy my career, personal freedom, and multiculturalism in
this beautiful country.
CZ: And you tried to use the lessons learned to help others facing their own struggles. I'm
familiar with your Antidiscrimination Response Training (A.R.T.), I watched the CD, and
we use some of your work on our own work. Of course, I see all of these as positive
accomplishments and positive contributions to our field; but from your perspective, what
are your major contributions to our field?
II: Well, I'm not sure how much contribution I have made. If I look at what I have done that may
be unique and may have contributed to some extent to the psychology or counseling practice and
profession, there may be several things I would mention.
One is my work around Morita therapy. It's a Japanese psychotherapy and I have introduced a
counseling model to the West that incorporates the Morita ideas and Japanese cultural values and
backgrounds into the culture of North America and western counseling, if you see counseling as
a culture, with empathy, relationship building, equality, and interpersonal respect in a more
horizontal non-hierarchical way. Morita therapy used to be practiced primarily in psychiatric
settings that had a very strong hierarchical component; where doctors or psychologists were
revered at times by patients in residential settings especially. How do you introduce the essence
of a therapy that's to some extent transcultural into the west and use the Morita ideas and theory
in a counseling context? I think that I brought the method of using Morita therapy in counseling
context. Sometimes it's called Morita-based counseling. In the west, I have produced some
videotapes and transcripts depicting or illustrating my clinical practice. I had taught graduate
students in this method, so that's one area where I have introduced Morita to the Western
counseling and psychotherapy practices.
CZ: Can you tell me more about Morita psychotherapy.
II: Morita therapy was developed initially by a Japanese psychiatrist, Shoma Morita. In the
1920s, he treated patients suffering mostly with what we might call somatoform disorders,
anxiety disorders, obsessive disorders, or neurasthenia. In other words, patients in the Morita
System who had symptoms of shinkeishitsu, or the nervious traits, were the target of this therapy.
And according to Morita this shékishīng or nervous type patients were suffering both
cognitive and behavioral negative cycles of actions where they were fighting something that was
natural. I use the metaphor of the willow tree bending against the wind, versus being or trying to
be like a strong oak tree that would withstand any strong winds; and then, eventually, breaks
against a gust of strong or powerful wind. Morita teaches clients who try to be like an oak tree to
look at another option, that is, to become like a willow tree. Clients or patients who suffer from
anxiety or related problems, and various affective symptoms, get preoccupied so much with their
attempts to control such symptoms that it's like a cat chasing it's own tail; it's going around and
around in a circle. Some people who are so controlled oriented get into their unproductive
lifestyle and question themselves for their own destructive ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
They get so narrowly focused on symptom removal or symptom control, and gaining more
control in life, that as a result they become more, how should I say, immersed in facing
symptoms as the foreground of life rather than the background; so, as a result, as they preoccupy
themselves with subjective conditions which they consider to be imperfect, unacceptable, and
that need to be changed, they forget what needs to be done. Here and now, living here and now,
means being sensitive to and aware of everything. Not just being aware selectively of the
subjective conditions. Some patients who are so perfectionist in how they think they should be in
terms of feelings and thoughts that when the reality for them is not acceptable, they try to change
the reality to fit it into or to conform it into the ideology. So they get caught in the gap between
the reality and the ideology, and their symptoms become fixed and exacerbated because it's like
scratching a scab that's part of the healing process in the skin. The more you focus on the itch the
stronger the itching you feel sometimes; and, as you scratch it, it bleeds and gets worse. You stop
the natural healing process.
CZ: Mm-hmm...
Morita relies very heavily on the natural healing process, the spontaneous healing process.
Trying to change the way you think cognitively has it's limits. If you feel anxious and someone
said don't think, or don't think that way, or change the way you think, be positive, etc, this type
of cognitive, artificial cognition, could backfire on you. This is especially true for clients that
have habituated response patterns. So the Morita basically was saying to go with the flow. When
you're anxious acknowledge your anxiety as it is, but do not tamper with it. You cannot choose
how you feel or how your affect changes. You may have some thoughts and feelings that emerge
but that disappear or recede into the background only if you're not trying to control them, and
keep them in the foreground. Meanwhile, you can choose what you do now. You have more
choice over action rather than over affective reactions or subjective cognitions. Could you let go?
You may have to feed the dog, you may have to do the dishes, you may have to prepare for
tomorrow's presentation, homework, phone calls to return; there are many tasks at hand that need
to be done now. Quality in actions, or feeling imperfect, or not being in that perfect mood. In
spite of those imperfect subjective conditions, can you see what needs to be done? Is it possible
for you to stay focused? Shifting the focus from yourself, or covert experiences, to overt
experiences or situations that require action from you, and your delivery of actions, instead of
developing some sophisticated ways of manipulating your feelings, or combating anxieties,
could you direct your effort to do a better job at the tasks that needs to be done? Because the
tasks need to be done for your sake, for others sake, or simply it's part of your life that needs to
be dealt with, if not now, much later; and you live with the consequences of your actions. So
actions can proceed to action that needs to be taken, rather than fearlessly. In the past and even
now, many counselors respond very, very sensitively when the client is anxious; and then,
suddenly, everything else becomes less important. Both the client and the therapist or counselor
collude in fighting anxiety because they see anxiety as an obstacle, as something that's
undesirable; something negative, sometimes shameful or pathological. So when you apologize
for abnormal anxiety as something as undesirable, both the client and the therapist end up
alienating anxiety. Clients must alienate and do a shift of anxious self or the nervous self which
helps one to reconcile with nature. Of course, not all of us are naturally anxious, but some people
are dispositionally anxious and they respond more readily with physical symptoms like the
reddening of the neck, or heart pulsations; some people are more sensitive. Can they live with the
anxious self to live a life fully, or as fully as they can by directing their attention or energy to
tasks that need to be done, making influence, and rewarding themselves for their constructive
influence; rather than judging themselves based on whether they are anxious or not, or how much
control they have over their emotions and subjective conditions.
CZ: Mm-hmm
In a way, Morita therapy is a way to bring us back to nature or natural conditions. Engaging
actions is part of nature. So that's the theory behind the Morita treatment. The first stage is called
the absolute bedrest. This is applied to clients or patients that are healthy physically but suffered
from severe types of preoccupations, and symptoms, affective symptoms. They keep the clients
in a hospital bed in residential treatment for 3 days to a week. What happens is that at the
beginning the clients' like it, because they get the rest and they don't have to face the world
outside, but boredom sets in. When they get bored, they have a natural spontaneous desire to do
something, and the patients are not necessarily kept in a locked place, like sensory deprivation
unit, they can hear and see from the windows or doors, what other patients are doing so they
think I want to go out and do something. I'm so bored being alone in bed, I can go to the
bathroom, I can eat, but I want to do something with my hands, something concrete. In a way,
the therapist hold that person or patient so the patient is frustrated, but their desire to work or do
something keeps getting stronger; and then, it's like releasing a horse in a horse race. You know,
you open the gate but you don't just let them do whatever they feel like doing. They have to go
through steps. First, simply being allowed to be in the hospital compound and observe others, but
they don't have any tasks. Then, they have smaller tasks. They're given a set of tasks such as
picking up garbage, you know, wiping the dirt off the tables; small or mini tasks that are easy to
accomplish and they can get the sensation of satisfaction, like I'm doing something, I'm being
useful. Then, they will give tasks that are more challenging, a bit more complex. It's more of a
reconditioning of the person's attitudes or lifestyle. They learn to become more accepting of their
natural self, including their nervous feelings. They also learn to be more responsible for their
choice of their action and be mindful of what needs to be done.
CZ: Are there some other areas of personal accomplishment that you would like to share?
II: Yes, there's another one called sociocultural competency development program. My
colleagues and I developed a program which we call Excell Program. It's not like the computer
program Excel. My colleagues who are Dr. Anita Masks, from the University of Canberra and
the University of Rutger, Dr. Baker from Princeton University and my colleague from Wexler
have collaborated on this project. This is basically a training for acquiring culturally sensitive
and culturally appropriate set of skills, social interactive skills. This training is designed to help
primarily immigrants and international students but now it has been adopted for training
Canadians in various professional programs such as adults in the nursing care programs. The
training focuses on the cultural mapping or sexually understanding some of the reasons why you
should or you should not behave or interact in certain ways. So it's a training method.
Participants not only develop social skills, interactive skills, and competencies, but also they can
validate their cultural self and the cultural meanings of their behaviors. Often the social skills
approach, or training approach, for westerners would require them to almost drop their cultural
competencies to become competent in another cultural setting. Our program has been successful
partly because participants acknowledged that they have culturally appropriate skills from where
they come from, in many cases, which they don't have to give up. They recognize how each
culture has sort of a formula or reason for behaving in certain ways, like asking for a big favor
from someone older than you or someone higher than you in a hierarchical society, or asking for
direction or confronting someone that's certain culturally appropriate manners, and sets of
behaviors that we follow to be successful. We try to help participants to learn a set of rules and
behaviors useful in their Canadian contexts or North American contexts, such as expressions,
non-verbals, and behaviors.
I did find four components in terms of socially culturally competencies. Culturally appropriate
and they are attending, bridging, commenting, and developing; called ABCD, sometimes we had
E for ending. So how do you attend non-verbally is similar to the microskills training approach.
Then we ask how can the person use attending to making a comment or interacting in terms with
member of the culture that you are interacting on. So that's bridging. Then, commenting. That's
when you say something that needs to be said, or engaging in substantial part of the interaction.
How do you develop a conversation or discussion from here, how do you move to the next stage?
So that's another area, that's a very, very important for me.
CZ: I can see the multicultural dimensions of your work. What led you to an awareness of
the multicultural and the social justice movement?
II: I think I'll share with you one example. My counseling training has not been that focused on
social activism or social justice. You know, counseling traditionally has been regarded as a way
of helping individuals to alleviate pain, etc. I was more interested in learning how to become a
better therapist and how to develop skills, than looking at the larger picture that's the social
cultural context or sociopolitical context in which things happen. Oppression may cause
depression if the oppression isn't dealt with. I was only looking at depression or anxiety, but
what else contributes to your difficulties in relationships, abuse, etc. What we cannot ignore are
contextual factors or societal forces. One day, I was in a grocery store, in a local community.
They had samples to give out. I stood behind someone until my turn came. I tried a piece and this
lady looked at me, up and down, and no verbally she pointed her finger at another plate which
had rejects. Sausages that were not appealing in appearance, and she said then, workers take
samples from this tray. She had assumed that I was one of the workers. I said, but I don't work
here; and then she said, oh then you may take it. She gave me permission; you may take it from
this plate. Well, at first I felt very uncomfortable, a bit angry, and annoyed, but it was not the
first time to be treated like an Asian worker, or being disrespected. In this case, I thought this
might be a teachable moment. I did something about it because if I don't speak up, this person
may keep doing the same thing, or the store that hired her to do it might be insensitive to
potential issues. So I said to myself, I'm going to take action here. Not really my style, but I
would talk to the management about it. I asked for the manager. The manager came and I said
this is exactly what happened, this is what she said. This is how I felt. I said, you know most
people would walk away feeling annoyed, or angry, or upset, and they never return, but
obviously you cater to clients or customers with various cultural backgrounds, and you want
them to come back don't you? He said yes. So I'm telling you here how I felt. It's very important
for this particular worker as well as for the company to not repeat the mistake, and to be more
sensitive. You should never assume that the Asian people or people from a certain cultural
background should be in a certain occupation or certain career, because that's very, very
presumptuous on your part. So, I would like you to take action on that. I'll come back next week
and check on you and ask you what you may have done. So and that's what I did. In fact, the
manager said, I will do that for sure. I said fine. He then looked at me and said, but you look like
Joe from the back; so obviously my confrontation was not entirely successful, he was a bit
defensive in that. I went back a week after and said what have you done? She explained what she
had done to me. She promised me that she would just avoid making unnecessary assumptions or
stereotypes.
This experience led me to believe that there are some steps that we can learn. I never learned
how to do it; I just thought on my feet what I should do at that moment. But why can't I
formalize this process of coping with the discrimination into something that's educational. I did
by myself, but how about someone standing by who understood the situation, what kind of
objectivity, how about that person being involved. What could be the role of the bystander?
Could that bystander be an active witness? That's how I started formulating the ART program,
and, you know, by that time I was also involved in the conceptual and theoretical involvement of
social skills training for immigrants. I thought this could be a good training model for those who
suffered from oppression or inappropriate interpersonal frustrations. I also thought that if
everyone, or people in the same unit, or same school, or same organization, all took this kind of
training to be an active witness maybe the social norm or standard would rise. We'll get to expect
each other to be an active witness, maybe this will led to some kind of societal change or
creating maturation. So that's how I started to develop this program.
CZ: What challenges did you face when you discovered this multicultural and social justice
movement?
II: Well, there were happy challenges in terms of my being active and creative in coming up with
practice scenarios. I enjoyed that kind of challenge. But one of the real challenges was that lots
of people were saying this won't change society. You're not vocal enough. You are still putting a
lot of responsibility on individuals. You've got to attack the institution system or organization, go
after them. Your approach is too gentle, too mild.
Some people responded to a very important component of my program that says, active
witnessing needs to be a shared social responsibility across all ethnic, racial, cultural groups. No
one group can be or should be identified as the victims group. And there are people who were
anti-racist activists, and they have their own good reasons and their own mature ideology, but
they are kind of intolerant of me saying minority persons can also be defenders of
discrimination; and some continuously challenge me on that my workshop or my training model
focus on moving people from the present to the future. They say that we got to look at the past,
the history of written racism, cultural genocide, and on-going prejudice and stereotyping should
be visited and analyzed from a systemic viewpoint. Who's got the power, who's got the
institutional privileges and opportunities that are not offered to minority members in the system.
So, you know, their arguments have merits so eventually I came to realize that what I'm trying to
do is not to replace other forms of social justice enhancement or resurrection. I'm also trying to
create a piece of pie, not the entire pie, it's a piece of pie called A.R.T. to address a bigger picture
in a small way hopefully. I'm not going to replace or necessarily compete with more politically
focused activities or programs.
Eventually whether we have minority background or not, we all have to live together on this
earth. We have to transcend race, gender, ethnicity and other factors, rather than all this having
the majority group or majority culture as enemy or defender of people. The fact that history
needs to acknowledge and there's sadness and anger and resentment associated with the history
of racial discrimination. We acknowledge what's happening here and now that's primarily
systemic, but at the same time how can I live respectfully with you and other members of various
cultures, including a majority culture members from here toward the future to create a better
society. One of the most important things from my perspective is that we all share the
responsibility of being an active witness. Doesn't matter whether I have and you have certain
ethnic and racial backgrounds or not, we all stand holding hands together to promote this culture
diversity and fight discrimination, stereotypes and prejudices and social oppression at all levels.
CZ: What are your impressions about the current status of the multicultural social justice
in our field?
II: I think I visualize the mountain, and different people are at different sides of the mountain.
Some are closer to the top, some are closer to the bottom, working with the so-called graduate,
some people working very closely with their government and institutional organizations, but I
think we are all working towards the same goal; and that is a world without prejudice and
discrimination and respect.
CZ: That's were you see our field going in the future?
II: I think a number of people are doing wonderful jobs. Alan Ivey and Mary Bradford Ivey are
working in terms in multicultural counseling, and therapy; and they have their own social justice
model. Michael D'Andrea and his colleagues are also taking a very strong vocal stance. We need
them, as well as people who are working with individual clients or small groups of individuals,
to help them deal with the grief, trauma, sadness or anger around racism and other faults of
oppression.
Things are happening and I think it's a very exciting time in human history. The biggest
challenge is that multicultural educators, and helping professionals and researchers, maybe are
enlightened in this respect; but, again, how are we educating society? How are we educating
policy makers, how are we working with or allying with the folks who have influence on a large
scale? Challenging and confronting is one very popular education. Another way I think could be
to recognize some strengths and achievements of what our institutions or countries have done;
sort of a soft approach, and uniting with everyone, including policy makers, politicians, the
various institutional leaders to share their vision, or have a visioning session to eradicate racial
discrimination and to come up with strategies at various level, including the education, curricula,
and the ways that we train teachers, counselors and educators.