Although I myself have not received inpatient treatment for Morita therapy, I would like to quote from the writings of Mr. Tomonori Suzuki, based on the testimonials of patients who received inpatient treatment.
It is stated that by continuing to engage in necessary daily activities while still experiencing symptoms of Morita therapy for several years, the symptoms and the quality of daily life improve.
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From “Positive Solutions for Neurosis” (Seishin Shobo, 1980.4)
Written in 1979, diagnosis: delusional social phobia, hospitalized in 1976, age 19 at hospitalization, age of onset 13, university student, genetically, father has a tendency towards neurosis.
I am currently 22 years old and a student at Hosei University. From March 1976, at the age of 19, I received inpatient Morita therapy under Dr. Tomonori Suzuki for four months, and it has been over three years since my discharge. My main symptom is social phobia. My father was also nervous, and I was nervous from a young age, timid, prone to worrying unnecessarily, but also very competitive.
When I was thirteen, in my second year of middle school, I suddenly began to feel pain when making eye contact with others. Gradually, I came to believe that I was inflicting the same pain on others, and I also became aware of their reactions, suffering from a sense of guilt. Therefore, I was certain that when someone averted their gaze while talking to me, it was to avoid the pain I was inflicting on them. This continued until I was seventeen, in my second year of high school, when I suddenly became bothered by the person sitting next to me, and this became painful. From that point on, I was constantly preoccupied with what was beside me, and again, I suffered from a sense of guilt, believing that I was inflicting the same pain on others—or rather, transferring that pain to them. For example, I was certain that when the person sitting next to me turned their face away or stretched, it was because they were feeling fatigued from the pain I had inflicted on them. Because of this, during classes I couldn’t lift my head to look at the blackboard, I would hang my head in crowds, and sometimes I would feel so uncomfortable that I would close my eyes, feeling completely out of place. Therefore, interacting with people was extremely painful. Eventually, it became impossible for me to meet people or attend classes at school. So, when I was seventeen, I tried hypnotherapy. This was done by someone who was not a licensed doctor. I underwent hypnosis about eight times, but it never worked. This hypnotherapy did absolutely nothing to resolve my symptoms. After that, I went to see a doctor at the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Higashiyama University. When I described my symptoms there, I was told something along the lines of, “This kind of condition happens to everyone, and there is no way to cure it other than yourself. Don’t worry about it too much,” in a short amount of time, and I was sent home with only medication. I had come to see a doctor because I couldn’t do anything about it on my own. I remember feeling extremely disappointed when I left the hospital after visiting because, despite trying not to worry about it, I was told “don’t worry about it too much” and wasn’t treated as if I were ill at all.
Fortunately, during this time, I came across Dr. Tomonori Suzuki’s book, “One Way of Life,” published by Hakuyosha, and was admitted to the hospital immediately after graduating from high school. This was in 1976, when I was 19 years old. I felt both a sense of relief and skepticism. During my hospital stay, I followed the hospital’s rules.
I woke at 7:00, had breakfast at 8:00, lunch at 12:30, dinner at 5:00, did radio calisthenics, sat quietly, kept a journal, played Hyakunin Isshu karuta, and went to bed at 10:00. Life here involved doing what was necessary at each moment within this routine. One example was the various assigned duties. These duties were determined directly by Dr. Suzuki. There are many tasks: cleaning, cooking, shopping, heating the bath, taking care of the dogs and birds, tending to the flowers, bringing in the laundry, cleaning the toilets, and so on. These duties, or other tasks, are of the nature that you have to do because they’re assigned, even if you feel reluctant or annoyed by them. Therefore, even if you feel anxious or worried about the person working next to you, you just focus on the task at hand, despite feeling extremely anxious.
Now, I’d like to talk about these duties. First, there’s the cooking duty. Suzuki Clinic has a large kitchen. Inpatients also help with meals here—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There are three kitchen staff members. Meal times are set, so preparations must be completed by that time. Since it’s preparing meals for many people, you can’t be idle. You have to constantly think about what needs to be done next, otherwise, the planning will be poor and it will just take a long time. This duty is always very busy.
Furthermore, being on bath fire duty isn’t simply a matter of burning wood. It requires considering the water temperature and the amount of smoke. If you’re not paying attention and produce thick smoke, you’ll immediately get a loud scolding from Mr. Suzuki. Thick smoke is a nuisance to the neighbors, so it must not be produced. This means you can’t be absent-minded even when it comes to heating the bath. You burn one piece of wood at a time and observe the smoke coming out of the chimney. You have to consider what state of the fire is right to add more wood, how much to adjust the air vents, and keep the water temperature constant—neither too hot nor too cold. If it’s said to be lukewarm, you have to heat it up quickly. However, burning too much wood at once will produce a lot of thick smoke. To burn as much wood as possible without producing thick smoke, you have to open the air vents all the way, fan the fire with a hand fan to increase the intensity of the fire as you burn the wood. In situations like this, even if someone is nearby and feels anxious, there’s no opportunity to alleviate that anxiety.
Also, the person in charge of bringing in the laundry has to unlock the rooftop door at 10 AM and 4 PM. If you accidentally forget the time, the time for hanging the laundry out is shortened, or the time for bringing it in is delayed, causing the clothes that were just dried to become damp. If it suddenly starts raining, you have to rush to the rooftop and bring the drying clothes inside. On days when it’s your turn, no matter what you’re doing or where you are, you constantly pay attention to the time and the weather.
Then, spring and autumn are extremely busy with rose care. Besides the hospital, the Suzuki Tomojun Clinic has a 300-tsubo (approximately 1,000 square meters) rose garden. Protecting these roses from rain and wind becomes a rose-related commotion. You’re immersed in this, and preoccupied with roses all day long.
It’s also very busy when the irises are in bloom. Since those long, slender stems support the large flowers, you must avoid placing them in windy areas. You need to be careful of the wind’s movement, even at night. If the wind starts to blow, you must quickly move them to a sheltered spot. To light the charcoal briquettes, you place newspaper on top of the briquettes, then place charcoal embers on top of the newspaper, and fan them with a hand fan. If you use too much charcoal embers, the briquettes will light more easily, but that will be wasteful. On the other hand, if you use too little, the briquettes will not light easily. You must use just the right amount. Because you are fanning them with a hand fan, ash will inevitably fly into the air. You must change your body position and how you fan to prevent the ash from falling on you. In these situations, even if I felt anxious, I didn’t have time to fight against that anxiety. I didn’t have time to resist that anxiety. I didn’t have time to tell myself to “accept the anxiety as it is.” There was an attitude there that didn’t consider anxiety or reassurance as issues. It was a state where there was no need to constantly seek reassurance in response to anxiety. Also, as I mentioned, during my hospitalization, I was constantly in a situation where I had to pay attention to everything. In this environment, even after finishing one task, the next one was always waiting. And some things came suddenly, like bringing in the laundry when it started to rain. I was placed in a completely unstable environment. However, even amidst this instability, I experienced things that were stable or enjoyable. For me, who couldn’t move on to the next thing without constantly gaining reassurance about everything, this was a valuable experience. Through this state, not through intellectual understanding of words, but through my own emotional experience, I learned the attitude of doing what was necessary even while feeling anxious.
The environment at Dr. Tomonori Suzuki’s clinic is perfectly set up for experiencing such an attitude. He uses the phrase “to cultivate such a self.” When I was first hospitalized, I was just working with the mindset that if I did this, I would get better, if I did that, I would get better—I was trying to cure myself, I was doing. However, as my hospital stay gradually increased, I was naturally pushed into a position where I had to take action against the clinic’s environment. This is the environment at Suzuki Clinic. In this state, I began to see what was necessary within that environment, and it started to happen naturally. Even when feelings of dislike or annoyance arose, or when I felt anxious, my mind naturally moved forward to doing what was necessary at that moment. In this way, I was guided by the hospital environment itself—that is, I was propelled forward from a place beyond my own thoughts and willpower—so I didn’t have to strain myself, and what was necessary at that moment happened naturally. It was entirely the environment that influenced me. I believe that through this process, the foundation for an attitude where I could do what was necessary even with anxiety symptoms was built.
After about four months of hospitalization, I was discharged. Even after discharge, whether I was feeling well or not, I visited Dr. Suzuki Tomonori once a month, from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, as a way of reliving the experience. However, for a while, when I felt anxious, I would repeat phrases like “just be yourself” to myself, trying to eliminate the anxiety. No matter how much I did, my anxiety didn’t go away; on the contrary, I ended up fighting against it. While it was far less than before my hospitalization, I still experienced some mental conflict.
Then, as I mentioned earlier, I continued to visit Dr. Suzuki once a month, reliving the experience. After about a year, I no longer needed to tell myself things to reassure myself about my anxiety. Now, two years later, I no longer feel the need to do something about my anxiety, or to tell myself that everything is alright because I feel safe. It’s not that I’m trying to prevent it; it simply doesn’t happen. Therefore, the mental conflict I experienced before has completely disappeared. Through this experience, I learned that merely an intellectual understanding of the phrase “accepting things as they are” is insufficient to achieve the mental attitude expressed by that phrase. Furthermore, trying to gain mental stability through an intellectual understanding of phrases like “accepting things as they are” is the same as what Dr. Morita meant by “this is how things should be.” This is a point that is difficult for people currently trapped in anxiety to understand. It can only be truly understood once one has achieved that mental attitude oneself. Furthermore, mental stability is not something that can be obtained through willpower alone; it comes naturally as you simply go about your life in the present moment, without any regard for your own will.
Currently, there are moments when I feel anxious, for example, when someone is sitting next to me. However, I don’t try to eliminate that anxiety, nor do I try to convince myself that it’s okay to feel this way. These anxieties are simply anxiety, nothing more. Since I don’t fight against them, they disappear quickly; I don’t even think about what’s going on. Before my hospitalization, I was constantly preoccupied with how others perceived me, and the awareness that I was making others feel uncomfortable was always stuck in my head. But now, I’ve honestly forgotten that I ever worried about such things. And I’m studying very hard.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to have met Professor Tomoaki Suzuki and received isolation therapy during my hospitalization, which allowed me to reach my current state in such a short time. If you are currently struggling with heart or gastrointestinal problems, difficulty studying, or social anxiety, I strongly recommend that you try hospitalization, even if only for a short period.
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This person’s symptoms improved to the point of being considered fully recovered two years after a four-month hospital stay. Even so, it took a total of two years and four months, including the hospital stay, to reach this point, during which time they continued to engage in necessary daily activities while leaving their symptoms untreated.
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