Karuizawa (2)

Karuizawa (1)

The climate in Karuizawa was apparently cool. I needed to turn on some heaters every night. Fortunately, I did not encounter rainy days.

I could see Magnolia kobus at any place. Cherry blossoms had not opened yet.

The next day, I participated in a nature watching tour. It was also fine day.

We walked around a river. The green was not bright. It has been more beautiful in May or June. Instead, it was relatively easy to find some bird, since the leaves did not cover the sky.

This is an extraordinary warning. How many frogs?

I could watch some Blue-and-White flycatcher. They were extremely blue and beautiful. Unfortunately, my camera was too weak to catch them in zoom.

There is a bird, maybe Robin, in this photo. Can you find it?

After the tour, I went to Wakadori, a famous Yakitori (barbeque chicken) restaurant. Mushiri (burned leg) was very delicious.

Oh, it's not an irony. Eating chicken is different from bird watching.

(To be continued)

Sequels in April 2014

April 23, 2014
Three perspectives of seller and buyer

This article is followed by additional discussion. I attempted to categorize several tools and services in 3 by 3 matrix.

Hmm, wrapping paper is more suitable for the examples of Back end goods for an experience, than cooking paper. (May 1, 2014 revised)


April 17, 2014
Cloud storage services (2)

Copy is an excellent service as a cloud storage. It caused no trouble till now. I will continue to use it for a while.


*Sequel


April 10, 2014
Nexus7 and Rakuten LTE SIM

It is also good. With continuous internet connection, Nexus7 has changed to a powerful gear. It is also an advantage that the battery is a pretty long life.


April 2, 2014
BD of Madoka Magica Movie 3: Rebellion

Unfortunately, I have not watched it at home yet. According to the publisher's note, it includes two versions. I expect to enjoy both of them.


April 1, 2014
I will be a trillionaire

Nothing to say, it is a joke. I sometimes receive this kind of spam mails. There is no free lunch.

Karuizawa (1)

I went to Karuizawa the last weekend.

Karuizawa is a middle-east region in Japan. It is famous as a summer resort because of its low temperature and beautiful landscape.

I lent a cottage for a few days to stay there.

Nagano Shinkansen (Super Express) is available to reach Karuizawa. It takes only one hour from Tokyo.

There was a calm and silent atmosphere.

I could find some shops providing bicycle for lent. And there were some estate agents around the station.

Nearby the station, a big shopping mall was open. It included several outlet stores.

The landscape was so relaxing.

I ate some vegetable foods, in addition to pasta at an Italian restaurant.

(To be continued)

Obama visit Japan and Korea

President Barack Obama came to Japan, meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on April 23. They seated together at Sukiyabashi Jiro, a Japanese Sushi Restaurant.

Mainichi: Obama opens Japan trip at famous sushi restaurant

Sukiyabashi Jiro is regarded as the best sushi restaurant in the world. Obama seems to be satisfied to eat the dinner. However, some Japanese media reported that Obama did not eat the whole contents provided by the chef. I do not know the truth.

The CNN: Obama begins Asia trip with 'the best sushi I've ever had'

Japan Today: Obama ate only half the sushi course: media

During the dinner, they discussed some political matters. It was important to gain some compromise from Abe regarding the negotiation of TPP for Obama. However, it seems that little attention is paid for TPP in the US citizens. Therefore, it is unclear how much Obama was concerned to TPP in this conversation.

After visiting Japan, Obama went to Korea. This trip was introduced accepting the request by Korea, according to Japanese media. This visit may be beneficial to Korea a lot.

What is empathy? (2)

What is empathy? (1)

Another supervisor of mine also taught me about how to empathize with the client. He chose to ask for help to the client. According to him, empathizing the client is basically difficult, because some clients have unique and strange worries to consult. The more their troubles are special, the more it is difficult for you to imagine them. To overcome this difficulty, you should know the emotion of the client more precisely. You can understand him only by asking your client about his feeling about the matter. Therefore, empathy is born from asking.

This concept relieved me, since it says that it is not embarrassing to ask for more detailed expression to the client. Former days, I misunderstood that psychiatrists had to read the mind of clients without any conversation. But it was ridiculous. Whenever I feel hard to empathize, I just talk with him. Finally, I will be able to trace his flow of mind.

One of my ex-bosses had an opinion that empathy is hardly achieved. When you feel that you can empathize with the client, you cannot empathize truly with him, because the client is absolutely different from you. He stated that empathy was not a goal, but a process. You make efforts to understand the client deeply, but it is a tough work. You try to save the client, but you are forced to face that it is not easy. You moan, discouraged, and feel desperate. These streams of emotion are an essence of empathy. Both your client and you are trapped in the troublesome situation. You are struggling together. This process is worth to be identified as empathy.

His thought is a little abstract. To be honest, I hardly understand his words still now. At least he described the complexity of empathy. He taught me that it is dangerous to feel that I completely understand about empathy with little experience.

Empathy is very complicated, although we often feel empathetic with others. Actually, there is no definite goal about this issue. Nevertheless, I dare to dig the concept continuously, for improving my skill as a psychiatrist.

What is empathy? (1)

Being able to empathize with the client is an essential ability for a therapist. It is not limited in clinical psychiatric setting. Even if you can understand the story told by the speaker, you would never gain the reliance of him unless you were empathetic with him. In other words, can you trust the adviser who seems not to be sincerely concerned about you?

Thus, theory of empathy has been paid great attention in clinical psychiatry. Learning how to empathize with the client is a great challenge for all therapists. There are lots of articles explaining this matter.

My boss told us that empathy was repeating what the client said. It sounds a little rough, but makes a point. Actually, it is not the only thing you should do is to empathize with the client. More important is to report your empathy to the client. So how to do? The answer is that you say what you heard from the client.

This theory is sometimes jeered, named "parrot method". But mirroring the words of the client has some advantages. First, you can avoid criticizing the client using repeating what you hear. Critical attitude easily breaks therapeutic alliance. The second reason is more scientific. When you mimic the expression of your client, your brain evokes an emotion in accordance with the words you say. It helps you to understand the thought of your client more deeply.

(To be continued)

Comparative advantage in housekeeping

The other day, I saw a discussion on a BBS. A woman asked for help about her personal life. Several persons made an answer for her.

The question was related to housekeeping job. She was married and a housewife. Her husband always complained about her performance of housekeeping, such as cooking, cleaning, and washing. "You are so dull and lazy. I can be hardly patient."

Actually, she was not good at this kind of task. She was not dexterous, but made strenuous efforts every day. So, after being blamed by the husband, she could not avoid from saying, "So, you should do instead of me! Try it!"

It was surprising for her to watch that her husband was carrying out the tasks without any troubling. His works were efficacious. He cleaned up the rooms with minimized waste of time. She was forced to recognize the fact that she was less effective than her husband at housekeeping, even still she was engaged in such tasks for a long time.

She felt desperate. Then, she made a question for some advices on the internet.

How do you reply to her?

To be honest, this BBS is infamous as many users are very provocative. Actually, there were several comments speaking ill of her. As far as I checked, few responses were truly useful.

My answer is typically based on economics. It is a good sample to explain the concept of "comparative advantage."

Comparative advantage means that a thing can take advantage, or contribute to the total achievement, even if it is absolutely inferior to others.

For example, imagine an excellent business person (e.g. CEO) and a rookie. The CEO can perform everything much faster than the rookie.

Here is two tasks. One is planning a business. The other is typing a dialog. The CEO can make planning ten times faster than the rookie. For typing, the CEO is faster than the rookie by twice. So what? If the CEO is involved in the both tasks, they will be done quickly. However, the rookie has no tasks to do. It is waste of payment for him. In contrast, if the rookie is engaged in typing exclusively, the CEO can make use of his time of typing into planning much more. It will be beneficial for the whole company. This situation can be described as the rookie contributes to the company with sparing the time of the CEO.

This is comparative advantage. You can notice that there is no advantage in the rookie. Even an absolutely inferior person can help more skillful persons with his usual power. This kind of thought seems hopeful for most ordinary people.

Therefore, I would like to say to the woman. "You should continue housework. Your minimal contribution can aid your husband, letting him concentrate on his own job. You can be proud of you."