This year’s New Year’s Day training was held at Ten-Sho-An. I had planned to come in the night before with my bike, but due to the cold wave, I gave up on the bike and took the train. I asked the staff to pick me up from the station by car.
The morning of New Year’s Day was covered with snow. Neo looks cold too!
The session started with a lunch of soba noodles … In the evening, we took a break with hashed beef Hayashi rice.
Even after dinner, we talked passionately about social pathology and how the people who are involved in the problem can help others. In Men’s counseling, when we talk about society, we have to talk about politics, history, discrimination and oppression, as well as the therapist’s own life and social position. This is a form of support that goes beyond narrative therapy or even the Amity. We also watched Amity’s “Lifers” for reference.
After watching Lifers, we had a midnight talk session from 10pm. We talked and talked until we all sank. A few of the toughest participants stayed up all night without sleeping and welcomed the morning.
After the workshop, we went for a nature walk for therapy… Rice field road with basal shoot and mountain road with lingering snow…


When the sun went down, we had our last session and ended the training. Everyone seemed to have had a good time talking, eating, and communicating with each other over the past 30 hours… Many of the participants said they were looking forward to next year’s New Year’s Day training. Thank you to everyone who participated. Well done.

Originally posted on January 3, 2021
English text translated with DeepL (Japanese to English) and checked by Mina.