The Ikigai Podcast
The Ikigai Podcast
Exploring the Intersection of Behavioral Activation and Ikigai with Nathania Rochelle and Jürgen Hoyer
Can ikigai be used as a treatment?
Ikigai is about discovering a sense of purpose, and when applied effectively, it can enhance other Western treatments like behavioural activation, promoting overall well-being.
In this episode of the Ikigai Podcast, Nick speaks with Nathania Rochelle and Jürgen Hoyer about leveraging behavioural activation and ikigai for preventive health.
I actually really love group treatment because the principles of behavioral activation can be taught in a group as easy as in an individual treatment and you do reach much more people, but the background of the people is quite different. So if you try to teach the principles to a group of Germans and there's somebody from Asia among the patients, it's not so easy for the person to accommodate to the principles. And once we found out that there's a similarity that I can say well, basically, it's very much the same like finding your Ikigai.
Speaker 2:Find your Ikigai at ikigaitribecom On episode 91 of the Ikigai podcast. I welcome Natanya, Rochelle and Juergen Hoyer. Natanya is a passionate in-training clinical psychologist, eager to help patients with empathy, psychological methods and hard work. She believes in the importance of research-based practice and practice-based research, and Juergen is a professor of behavioral psychotherapy at the Technical University of Dresden. Thank you very much for joining me today and welcome to the podcast. I'll start with that.
Speaker 2:You co-authored this article or paper titled A Cross-Cultural Conceptual Comparison of Behavioral Activation and Ikigai and I thought, wow, that is interesting. And I guess, on a personal note, I was surprised to see my name as a citation in the paper. So thank you for referencing me in the paper. That was a lovely little surprise. I never imagined I'd be referenced in a technical paper or a paper based on behavioral activation. Based on behavioral activation. So in this article you propose that cultural bridging is possible between behavioral activation and ikigai, as they share the same basic principle the importance of an individual's values, of becoming motivated and guiding everyday action decisions. So probably should ask how did this paper come about, Natanya?
Speaker 3:So probably should ask how did this paper come about, natanya? I think this paper came about. This is a little bit more personal, but I think it's fine if I explain it as well. I was looking for topics for my bachelor thesis actually. So I was just writing on professor and asking, hey, do you have any topics? And I come across Juergen and I just wrote him hey, do you probably have some topic? And he brought up this topic actually.
Speaker 3:So this started off as like a mini bachelor thesis in order for me to get my degree actually, but then it became something a lot bigger, I guess, something that I did not quite expect that it would be like that. When I remember writing my bachelor thesis thesis, I had tons of fun doing it, just reading about ikigai, reading about behavioral activation and learning about all of these things that are similar and sometimes are not similar because maybe, coming from like a, I come from an eastern background as well that topic obviously is very interesting to me and having like study here obviously I am also German trained in a way, because, like I do my um university and education here, um, to become a psychologist. So I think that really sparks my interest in it and yeah, that's how how I came across Ikigai and I guess like the topic as well, like you've seen it in bookstores too, like books about it and like things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so was it that, jürgen, you actually introduced Ikigai to Natanya?
Speaker 1:that's correct and you can call it a fortunate accident, because I came across Ikigai. I can't exactly remember, but I guess that some algorithm behind Instagram was the cause. So I just came across Ikigai. I found it interesting and I bought the book by Ken Mogi on Ikigai to give it to my wife because I thought it would be an interesting read.
Speaker 1:Then I opened up the book and I saw the five principles, and that gave me goosebumps, because immediately I saw the similarity between this Eastern concept and the Western strategy in treatment that I've been using a lot during recent years, which is called behavioral activation. So the reasons why we become active are maybe shared knowledge across cultures, but they may be termed differently, and the strategies to arrive at a fulfilling form of activity different ones, and so I thought both strategies could benefit from each other and help us to become more flexible in finding our motivations and ikigai moments and ikigai moments. So and that was my thinking, but I've enough to do as a therapist, as a professor, as a researcher, I would say and then Natalia asked me for a topic. So guess what? I told her what a possible topic. I'm actually fortunate that our motivations really came together and Natalia, I must say, is so talented, because it's quite unusual that a bachelor thesis finally makes it into a scientific international journal with external review, which it did Thanks to.
Speaker 2:Natalia. Well, there you go. Yeah, I mean a few things on that is. I know Ken Moggy's book is booming in Germany at the moment. I think it's a bestseller.
Speaker 3:It's been a bestseller for a number of months.
Speaker 2:And, interestingly, the five pillars are really Ken's personal theory on Ikigai. So it's interesting how it does resonate, I guess, with German readers. Oniki Gai so it's interesting how it does resonate, I guess, with German readers. And then, yeah, natanya, I mean, I think writing a paper would probably be harder than writing a book, with all these citations and the review process and getting everything accurate. So it must have been. I have this vision. It must be quite hard. But was it hard or enjoyable, or both?
Speaker 3:as the author, I think I mean, we're talking about Ikigai here. I think it is definitely a process. It was not easy. It took me some time to like convert it, so to say, from my bachelor thesis to, for me personally, also say, also say, hey, this is something that is good enough that I think I feel pretty good about submitting it to the paper, like.
Speaker 3:That process was definitely a lot harder than just writing a thesis, for sure, but I do think it is something that I enjoy doing a lot. So like, even though it's hard, it was something that I enjoy doing a lot. So like, even though it's hard, it was something that I thoroughly enjoy, like I enjoy reading and like just maybe geeking out a little bit on like writing it and finding the right words and how to make my idea come across, and also, like all of these people that has written about it before, like for them to also get their credit because, like I can only write as good as what the people before me has published and like has done research on. I think so, in a way, it kind of reflects my own personal ikigai in a way for that period of time. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean writing's challenging, but it's definitely worth doing, and I guess it's meaning making. You're expressing yourself, you're expressing this creative self and pulling all these ideas together. So, yeah, it does take effort, but it's rewarding when you, I guess you finish, and I'm sure it was rewarding when, yeah, the paper was published. So, yeah, congratulations to you both, and perhaps we should take time to touch on behavioral activation, what that exactly means. So maybe, jürgen, would you like to touch on that, because I think you have a strong history with that, a long history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a psychotherapist and I'm concentrating in research and in treatment on anxiety disorders and affective disorders, most importantly depression and the treatment concepts for depression. Many of them are coming from behavior therapy and one of them, the easiest principle, is called behavioral activation and that's been developed in the United States by a group around Peter Lewinson and others like First Reem and others. Famous depression theorist Aaron Beck integrated behavioral activation in his concept which had dominated depression treatment for decades. But behavioral activation was not attractive. The basic idea behind behavioral activation is depressed people suffer from doing too little rewarding activities, so what would help them is increase their activation rate. That's really very simple thinking.
Speaker 1:But guess how depressed people find that? I mean it's a little bit ironic even because that's exactly what they can't do engage in things. And so behavioral activation got reformulation in the 90s and beginning 2000 years and that rethinking of behavioral activation integrated value work. So what your values in your life that you are really committed to? And so there was a shift in the conceptualization of behavioral activation from just doing more pleasurable things toward finding committed action for yourself that serve your values, because you cannot do the whole day pleasurable things and definitely not as long as you're depressed, but if you want to get back into life, it's very helpful to do simple tasks. After having done them, you will feel better than before, and that's really a life principle grounded on wisdom. I mean, do your thing, as small as it might be. It gives you better feelings than not doing it, and that's the motivational motor within behavioral activation.
Speaker 1:But how do you find the right action? And that's quite different and I don't think that this is different from Ikigai different from Ikigai and I don't think that there are such strategic ways within Ikigai like they are in behavioral activation. And that is called activity monitoring and scheduling. It's a form of an inductive method, so you're just monitoring your daily activities and in your activity and mood protocol you evaluate how your mood was during and after an activity. And doing this avoids what we call recall bias, because if you ask a depressed person after a week if there have been any enjoyable activities, a depressed person, the mindset is so. There have been any enjoyable activities, a depressed person the mindset is so negative that the person will answer no. But if you look at activities when they occur, you find out that not all activities are giving you bad mood.
Speaker 1:Some give you not euphoric or wonderful or happy mood, but make you feel okay and step by step, you choose to these kinds of activities over other activities, especially depressogenic, as we say, activities like withdrawal, staying in bed, engaging in negative thinking, paying attention to your own feelings of insufficiency and things like that. So any activity, even on really small matters, are beneficial compared to just staying in a depressed mood and remaining passive. So that's the idea behind behavioral activation. It's a well-tested method. It's as beneficial as the best behavioral methods and treatments, but it's simpler because that's the basic idea and, yeah, we have empirical data enough to say that's people helping out of depression. Not all of them, of course, but in many cases, even severe cases, it a close neighbor of behavioral activation in the field of preventing to ever fall into the depressive hole, so to say.
Speaker 2:That's what I found attractive of the paper, because I thought I haven't. I actually had been looking for a paper on Ikigai related to depression, whether it can help with depression, does it prevent depression? And I mean the value idea is interesting because if I'm a guest on a podcast, I'll often start by saying Ikigai is all about you know your values, living in alignment with your values, and it's obviously meaning making. But you know, if you live in conflict with your values, whether that's in a job or you're compromising your values in a relationship, it's going to be very hard to feel um ikigai. So I know we're going to touch on values later. So thanks for that definition.
Speaker 2:Now we might move on to defining ikigai, and I know you both did a lot of reading on this and there were many citations, and actually a lot of your citations refer to quite a few of these amazing people who've been on my podcast, such as Ken Moggy, chiko Ozawa de Silva, shintaro Kono, gordon Matthews, dean Fido. So, with all the insights and all the reading you did, natanya, how would you define ikigai? Or how did you define ikigai in the paper?
Speaker 3:I think in the paper, because it provides a systematic comparison to about. So I try my best to kind of like stick to the original idea as close as I could possibly get with all of the things that have been published, or like people that haven't been defined how ikigai is, so to say. But I think I mean if taking it also into context with behavioral activation I do agree that ikigai is something that makes your life worth living, but I think it can also, how Jorgen and Jovi has already touched on it be value-based. So I think it is making life worth living, but it's not just randomly trying to make your life worth living, but also living your life according to your values. I think I would take it one step further to say life like the life you it's worth living for, is the life that that you can live out your values.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yeah, I mean Ken Ken in his book. One of the first questions is what are your sentimental values? And I always thought sentimental was like a really interesting word choice, maybe suggesting the inner child or this, this, this untainted self, because he didn't say core values or most important values so there's this emotional connection perhaps ken's touching on, to your values.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think that's really important and I guess sometimes I reflect and think, wow, there are millions of people living their life against their values and it's no wonder they're frustrated and depressed. And in this modern world, with so much pressure and so much distraction and almost, it seems now, little opportunity to express our values, it seems quite hard for us to feel ikigai, or for many of us, it's interesting how, yeah, ikigai and behavioral activation have this foundation on values. So we should touch on the aim of the paper, right? So I might refer to you again, natanya, and then we might come back to you again as well. So, yeah, what was the aim of the paper?
Speaker 3:I think the aim of the paper was to obviously provide this parallel, because I think it's very interesting how I mean, through the reading, the way I understand it, ikigai has existed for a long time and it's even like part of the everyday, everyday language, so to say so I think it is very embedded in the culture and, whereas, like, behavioral activation is like you can also already describe um, something that is recent, more recent, I think, in comparison to ikigai.
Speaker 3:So I think the aim is to kind of put this in parallel and see, wow, there is this like live philosophy that has existed for a long time and then suddenly in the Western world, there is this whole idea and then it becomes psychotherapy method. So I think the aim is to like, obviously bring that into parallel and also see, in a way, how can we maybe integrate that, maybe in therapy, but also in the prevention, I think. I think that is the field that I think is also most interesting to see how, because ikigai is something that, if it's really something that has already existed and people practice it in their daily life I mean it's kind of weird to say like practice ikigai, but let's roll with it Like they already exist. Then imagine like the amount of people that would not feel depressed just because they lead a value based life and that makes their life worth living, and they have all of this like good feelings. Imagine that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think like to explore those ideas and like broaden the perspective also to see not to maybe be as psychological minded in a way, but also try to be more like open up the world for it to to reach more people and reach a broader audience. I think that was ultimately the aim for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Nice, I mean this often is the case. Eastern wisdom seems to get later validated with Western research. And I mean ikigai is unique in that it is used in an everyday kind of language context. But most Japanese don't really talk about ikigai and it's something they grow up with, something they intuitively understand with life experience.
Speaker 2:Yet we don't go around saying it'd be very weird for us to say, hey, what makes your life worth living, or what's your life purpose, just in a normal casual conversation, whereas, okay, you know, occasionally or rarely japanese might say whereas okay, you know, occasionally or rarely, japanese might say, oh, yeah, I would say my work is a source of ikigai or you know, they'll use it very casually. So it's fascinating how in eastern culture these, these ideas sort of seem to just evolve from their understanding of life, for a meaningful life, but in the west we we seem to have to validate and do some research and study and then we give it a very technical term that's kind of hard to use in conversation. Yeah, would you like to add anything, jürgen, because I guess this was your idea, perhaps to? Oh, let's compare these two concepts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah it is. It was my idea, thanks, yeah. Well, one of the many aims of the paper was ultimately to bring researchers together to unite their efforts. I mean it would make much sense to discuss the core meanings as well of Western values and of Ikigai experiences in a united form of research. And when I started PEPA, of course, I had a dream, and the dream is that researchers from the West and from the East would try to ask people what is your Ikigai or what's the reason why you get up in the morning? And if you ask a thousand people, I think it's too little. It should be a thousand, because psychology research aims at giving representative answers that are true for the majority of people. And that would be a complicated research because the answers will be very, very different and we would have to categorize them and we would learn so much from these answers. And we would learn it for the theory of well-being.
Speaker 1:How do people generate well-being? With their own actions, not being angry about politics or others, but just looking at their own action and directing their attention to what they can achieve, what they could do with their own life. And I think that's a very important part of mental health at all, and discussing this is, of course, one of the most interesting topics you can choose, and, while I'm convinced that research from the West can learn from those ideas and researchers in the East, too, could benefit from discussing their ideas with Western-like therapists or therapy researchers, that's the idea, one of the ideas which you always hope that if you write a journal article, you always hope that it might stimulate somebody out there. I'm very grateful that you invited us to the podcast, at least this time. It's a paper that doesn't have an effect.
Speaker 2:It is. I mean, it is quite bizarre. I never imagined I'd be reaching out to academics and researchers and saying, hey, would you want to talk about life meaning and Ikigai? But I love it. And I do love that idea of bringing, yeah, researchers together and share ideas and themes and perspectives from different cultural perspectives, idea of bringing um, yeah, researchers together and share ideas and themes and perspectives from different cultural perspectives, and I actually did a nikki guy summit last year. So I'd like to do that again and be great to do that in person, perhaps in in japan.
Speaker 2:But when I think about ikigai and when I discuss it and your well-being well-being comes up, and for me this is almost a word that articulates like this is Japan's version of positive psychology in one word, encapsulated in one word, and these themes of life satisfaction, you know, relationships, a sense of freedom, a bright future, meaning and value. It's fascinating and the research is seemingly endless and more and more papers appearing. So, yeah, it's great we can talk about this and we should talk about this, and I think we don't. You know, most people don't have these conversations. They only have these conversations perhaps at a workshop or if they need help. We don't sit down with our families or friends and we're usually talking about how upset we are that our sports team lost a match or our negative things. We need to get things off our chest.
Speaker 2:So I agree totally that discussing this is really important. And to move on, yeah, this idea of the practice of behaviour activation or ikigai sounds a little bit unusual, but I guess people do Japanese do pursue their ikigai, you know, maybe on the weekends or in their relationships or in their private time. So we could say it's something you practice. So can you walk us through how behavioral activation and Ikigai are practiced in this context of treatment or therapy? Yeah, who would like to touch on that? Yeah, who would like to touch on that?
Speaker 3:I think Jürgen should touch on that, as he has more experience on the therapy fields.
Speaker 1:I think yeah, before I start, I have to say that what I learn, I do learn from depressed patients, not from like friends or people who are healthy and who are in my social network.
Speaker 2:I learn it from my patients.
Speaker 1:So this we have to keep in mind. But still, I do learn from them, and what I learn is how to become not just motivated. That's quite inherent in behavioral activation, because during activity monitoring and scheduling, you find out what brings you like enjoyment, but also the feeling that you did something that really was an expression of your commitment to your values. That's not the only thing, because depressed persons will obviously, if they start an action, have negative comments on it. Why am I doing this? Well, actually it doesn't feel as good as I thought it would. Other people will not notice things like that. People will not notice things like that, so there will be these negative attentional processes which a colleague of mine whom I admire, adrian Wells, called the cognitive attentive syndrome. So that explains why people tend to ruminate and keep on worrying, though it doesn't really help anybody. And ikigai means you not only ask the right question, but you only know something from your inside how to do it, because it gives you focus and care during your actions. This is something that we in behavioral activation teach patients. So become concentrated on what you're doing, keep attention to what you're doing. If you decided to do it, then try to become present in that moment, Sharing time with your children, that's good, but are you really there? Or are you in such a cognitive attentive syndrome thinking about something else, your, your own insufficience and your work obligations, and what other people said and what other people expecting, and so on?
Speaker 1:Are you really there? And this seems to me, uh, to be an inherent in in ikigai, because, if you know, today I want to share time with my children. So you can ask yourself am I sharing time or am I in my head somewhere else? So that's what we learn during treatment. We see people take on action and then they come back to treatment and they say, well, I did it, but it didn't feel quite good. Then, of course, the typical question of the therapist is what did you really do? Have you been really there when sharing time with your kids? And then maybe they are saying, well, yes, I was there, my body was there, but I had not. And Ikigai would give this different shape, a different flair. So you could ask am I really there? Am I really doing what I decided to do? And so this spin towards your action, that could be a nice import from Ikigai, so to say.
Speaker 2:That's a valid point. And now I'm thinking of the word engagement. I guess you do engage with your Ikigai because it's meaningful, it's based on your values, especially in a role you know if you really value a role as a parent or a friend or a researcher. Yeah, you'll engage in that and you'll be so. Present time will disappear, but it also seems like we suffer from this insanity of ruminating on the past or worrying about the future, and we can get into these cycles where we're wasting hours of time remembering something that upset us and it's like we're insane. So, yeah, it's all very interesting and Ikigai does offer us this alternative way to think about oh, how can I get through the tough times in my life? But it does sound a little odd or unnatural to say practice Ikigai. But it is something we can practice. And it reminds me of one of my guests, trudy Boyle, amazing woman, on episode 39. And she said Ikigai is a call to action. I love that.
Speaker 2:And Ken Moggy talks about the idea of how Ikigai responds to proactiveness. You've got to get up and do something. It responds to that you will feel Ikigai. So, yeah, this is interesting. So did you get that feeling, natanya? Like oh, ikigai is not this passive thing. It's this proactive type of I don't know what you call it well-being, self-well-being or self-prescribed well-being Is that the right way to say it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I do get the feeling that Ikigai is this proactive way on doing things and I think it is fascinating for me to see that you cannot just feel good if you just stand there and do nothing. I think the closeness to this call to action is very fascinating to do so. Call to action, it's very fascinating to do so and I think, especially in looking at the context of this world, like you said, like this insanity of this world where you're kind of feed, like information is feed to you like nothing else in, like the last I don't know, like the last century, like the amount of information you got feed in, I think it's also absolutely insane. So, like that proactiveness to bring to like selectively decide and intentionally choose. This is how I want to live my life, this is how I want to do my life. I think that is the core of it at the end, like that intentionality of it, that I guess intentionality and the engagement of how you do your life and also like the information that you receive and like things like that and what to do with it.
Speaker 3:I think it is definitely that, and also I'm referring to what Juergen said earlier about how sorry I lost. I lost my point there a little bit. I was again, I'll put my hand and I was like wait, what was I about to say? Um, um, about how asking the right question each morning, right, like what you get up, what do you want to do, and like the intentionality behind it, I think is definitely what really guides it.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, anyone who knows ikigai knows it's often expressed as the thing that gets you out of bed in the morning.
Speaker 2:But I remember listening to a podcast between two Japanese talking about it, and one of them said actually you know what? It's not what gets you out of bed in the morning, it's what you look forward to getting out of bed the next day, to getting out of bed the next day. So that could infer intention, or almost this anticipatory pleasure or enjoyment of thinking about ah, tomorrow I've got this to look forward to. And ikigai is tied to future perspective as well. I think you would have read a little bit about me called Kamiya, and tying ikigai involves your perception of the future. So even if you're depressed now or struggling now, if you have goals to look forward to or things to look forward to that can give you that focus or awareness and pull you out of that depressive state that's called reward anticipating in psychological depression research or in emotional research, reward anticipating that's something that keeps you going If you know it's going to be great next time.
Speaker 1:you keep being motivated. So it's an active process, which is disordered or disturbed once you become depressed, because during depression you think it's going on like it is today, so I'm gonna be feeling sad next time too, which is not correct. You will feel next time may be great, as long as you anticipate it in your mind. So it's also about generating positive fantasies about your action there. You go.
Speaker 2:So it's all in our mind. It's fascinating how our emotions and feelings, our state, how we communicate can be influenced what's going on in our mind. We can be compassionate and kind if we've got something positive in our mind, and then we can be aggressive and offhand and snappy if we've got something positive in our mind, and then we can be aggressive and offhand and snappy if we've got some negative thought. So it really matters to be present and aware, and I guess now we could touch on perhaps some of the similarities you uncovered between behaviour activation and ikigai, and maybe even some of the differences might help.
Speaker 1:I mean it's really striking the idea with the small steps and the idea of starting small. This is so central to behavioral therapy. It's a basic idea of behavioral therapy since decades and that comes out of this experience because the logic is quite clear If you start small, you will start successfully, you will start with a success. If you start large, you take the risk of failing and that will not motivate you. So having the experience that something works and you can do it, that's really motivating and that's even increasing motivation, and then you can start doing it better next time, or larger or whatever. But that's the way you bring things motivationally into life. And so that seems to be a basic principle and in my experience as a therapist I've always been using this and it's paradoxically.
Speaker 1:I mean I remember having treated a manager from a German company and his goal was to become the CEO of that company. His goal was to become the CEO of that company. I guess the company is so large it's maybe even well-known abroad, I don't know. But then I told him the logic of starting small, because he was depressed severely after having had brain tumor surgery and it was not realistic to still become what he wanted before. And so I told him the logic of taking on small steps and I was afraid that he would be like disappointed, that he would be like disappointed. So the expectation to therapists is that they're even more wise than you are and they have the overall sensational solution maybe.
Speaker 1:And I'm a professor and I told him well, I don't have any sensational solution at all. I have the most mundane solution, which is start small, start with small steps. And well, we had a sensational success in that kind of therapy. He stopped his career, actually, and I mean, in other words, he found his ikigai. He moved completely out of office, changed the office, began a different thing. I asked him what are the things that you really would like to do, given that you cannot become the CEO? And he said well, actually, I love, really love, hunting, being out, being out in the woods, oh, really, and that's what he did among other things.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that's, I guess, a similarity, and I guess that's something that is global wisdom If you want to restart your life, you cannot start large.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:Just in rehabilitation treatment. I mean, you had a broken leg. Yeah, yeah, you start small. Taking the first step again is a great experience. It signals you're on the right track and I mean that's something that people are checking constantly. That's how self-regulation works. We're always checking are we on the right track? And if you take on small steps, this checking process is easier and the feedback from the checking process will more often be yes, you are, you can do that, you're not failing.
Speaker 1:Go on, how does that feel? It feels good. So that's one similarity.
Speaker 1:And there's another similarity, which is the principle of doing things with awareness and with high quality. I mean, that's what I talked previously about. It's not just doing the action, but with awareness, with commitment and with a certain emotional deepness. And as long as that exists, you will enjoy the action, even if it's not typically positive or pleasurable action. Just having your tax tax application done you fulfillment if you, if you do it, relief without feelings of Feelings of anger and feeling under time pressure, yeah, you can do it in a relaxed way. And so those are the similarities. I'm not clear, but if I speculate on the dissimilarities, I guess that's something that you already mentioned, nick that in Japanese culture you can ask your neighbor so how about your ikigai today? What is it that you're committed to today? That's unusual in the West. So reflecting on your ikigai seems to be embedded in the Japanese culture in a very wise and healthy way, and it does not seem so in the Western culture. Maybe our podcast can contribute to that a little bit.
Speaker 2:It's interesting that this idea of yeah, we've touched on doing things, starting small, which obviously Ken Moggy writes about very powerful concepts, and he does say in the West we have this all-or-nothing attitude, yeah, so it's applicable, it's like a universal concept. You can apply it to everything. And then the idea of doing things well or with care. There's actually a Japanese expression called chanto suru and you know my wife's always telling me to do things properly. I remember when my son I have a 20-year-old son, but when he was a young child my wife would, when we lived in Japan, if we had visitors, she would take him by the hand to the door and say like chanto aisatsu, shite ne, and greet our guests properly. And this word chanto, we don't often say do this properly, do that properly. So Japanese do have this lexicon of words.
Speaker 2:They're very powerful and they're used in a daily context. But what I found really interesting was one of the case studies on a Japanese living in Germany. So, ditanji, do you want to touch on this case study? I guess this young 23-year-old Japanese architect student and, ironically, ikigai helped them. Yeah, do you want to touch on that?
Speaker 1:Or should I do this because it was my treatment?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think it's better because that was based off on that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I actually really love group treatment because the principles of behavior activation can be taught in a group as easy as in an individual treatment and you do reach much more people, but the background of the people is quite different. So if you try to teach the principles to a group of Germans and there's somebody from Asia among the patients, maybe it's not so easy for the person to accommodate to the principles. And once we found out that there's a similarity that I can say well, basically it's very much the same like finding your ikigai, and you can try to find your ikigai even when you're depressed. It will not help immediately, but depression does not mean that you cannot follow your ikigai. And as long as you can follow your ikigai despite your depression, depression will lose power over you. And that was really like ooh.
Speaker 1:I mean at that moment the patient got it like a an epiphany you can follow up your past despite your feelings or your mood, as long as you know what your icky guy is yeah, that was interesting reading that.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh wow, this japanese person, student away from home, struggling with their well-being, and I mean, obviously it probably took more than this, but I was this um trigger that made them realize, oh, I can, can still find meaning, I can still do things that are worthwhile. That will. That obviously impacted their well-being in a positive way. After they framed it as ikigai Natalia, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 3:Sorry, no, sorry, I didn't quite realize you weren't quite done yet, but no, just like adding into it a little bit. I think the idea of like briefly also mentioned it about like the whole, like cultural bridging and like things like that, I think how, if it's like something that is spoken in your mother tongue, in a way, like this idea that was spoken near to you, I think that really definitely enhanced that as well, like the whole treatment and things like that, especially with you know, it's something like oh, I know, that's from home yeah, yeah no, just adding that yeah it would ground you, comfort you as well yeah yeah, so that's that was interesting.
Speaker 2:So, going back to your paper, in the paper as a subheading, you ask the question is there a cross-cultural transfer? So would you like to answer that? Uh, natanya, between, obviously between the two concepts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, um, the whole idea about cross-cultural transfer I find fascinating because, like again, it's like the ideas, okay, they exist, but okay, obviously, like culture, um, influence that as well. I think I think, especially in a time we live now, the whole hybrid of culture and especially with the internet and everything, the hybrid of the culture even though we don't want to say that they don't exist, they exist this hybrid of culture, young people, the hybrid of culture between the Eastern and the Western, it's not as distinctive anymore. So I think finding a way to integrate that could be one way to also like accommodate, to like the next generation, because you might never know what this generation received from the internet, right, you don't know, like, what kind of people they're talking to with. It's very much possible, like how we're doing this podcast right now. You know like this whole idea of that.
Speaker 3:So I think cross-cultural transfer, in a way, I think without us even realizing it, I think it is already happening. So, like the idea of, like behavioral activation and nikki guy and like things like that, without us even realizing, or like there's like a systematic, more intentional way of integrating that like I feel like subconsciously it's already happening and we're just now realizing it. Oh, it's happening now. Oh, wow, there's more people that maybe relate with more eastern wisdom or more um, maybe, like east people with eastern background, now relates more for something more western or more eastern, in a way yeah, yeah, totally, yeah, totally yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's interesting A lot of the Japanese words that become popular. Wabi-sabi is a really good one. Wabi-sabi is something you sense, you feel from an aesthetic of nature or pottery, and then in the West it's sort of become this idea of living the imperfect life and accepting your own flaws. And the same with kintsugi. Kintsugi is this way to repair pottery, and Japanese would only understand it as that. It's this golden lacquer to you know, pull pieces of pottery together that have been broken. But even in the West now it's sort of embraced as oh, your scars sort of add to your life and you're, um, if you, if you're broken and you come back together, you're, you're stronger and more beautiful. So there is this sort of transfer, even if it's a little bit lost in translation, which yeah, as it usually happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes that happens interesting, yeah, and maybe that's in some ways beneficial. But, um, yeah, mickey guy certainly got lost in translation, as you guys would know, so it's good to see people um research it and maybe not only lost, but also maybe transformed a little bit a little bit more so, yeah, this is fascinating how, um some words seem to stick and we we fall in love with them or embrace them.
Speaker 2:I guess. Going back to what I was really interested in was it's obviously established that behavioral activation has continuously been demonstrated in psychotherapy to treat depression effectively across different cultures. So my question is probably to you, jürgen are you confident that the same can be said for ikigai? Could it be treated as a psychotherapy to treat depression in various cultures?
Speaker 1:Actually, that's something that Natalia and I are touching on now, Because the next step for us seems to be how can we promote prevention of depression? How can we promote prevention of depression? And Iggy Guy is obviously nothing that has been developed as a treatment. In my view, it's a helpful and healthy strategy to look on life and my actions in life. It's just raising the right question. As I say, I would say, it's not a thing that you can grasp. It's more a process of asking questions and checking out if you're on the right track in finding your Ikigai of today or of the year of your life, and so that's something that people should have the privilege to adhere to, and I'm very optimistic that this could work in prevention. So my vision would be don't laugh. My vision would be don't laugh.
Speaker 1:My vision would be to teach the Ikigai approach in German schools Fantastic white thinking against too much doubt and a form of teaching individuality, a form of like confidently stay with yourself, and that's something that adolescents need a lot. That's my vision. That's what I'm optimistic about. I wouldn't say that it would add too much to behavioral activation, except in those cases which we mentioned in the article, but as a form of health prevention for everybody. I see it to be really, really, really beneficial. I'm very optimistic about it and I'm really keen and very optimistic about it and I'm really keen on learning more about it. I'm looking forward to my first trip to Japan. I want to see Japan in my life.
Speaker 2:It's interesting you mention that because I met actually a German I'll say his first name because he won't mind Martin who joined one of my cohorts just recently. I actually met him in Japan very briefly for a coffee and he was sort of interested in one of my programs. And he said later after his trip, he said you know, when we met you, Nick, we were kind of sceptical because we were in Tokyo, all these salary men, all this noise and hustle and bustle and stress. We thought, oh, is this icky guy thing real? And then he said it was only really when we went outside of the big cities that we saw it in people. We saw it in, you know, these people working on their own vegetable gardens or these people who really enjoyed having them as guests at you know, ryokans or airbnbs. And yeah, if you want to see ikigai, I definitely recommend you can go to the big cities and have a bit of fun, but you'll see it truly alive in the rural areas of Japan.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's something I really enjoy. My wife's from a small town, and so when I get back there it's really nice to be away from that would be a nice research question too, by the way.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Your friends of Ikigai and Ruru in Japan. Yeah yeah, worldwide, I mean that's interesting because Ikigai.
Speaker 2:Up until now, the research in Japan has really been restricted to the elderly. And what will Japanese do after retirement? And most of the studies are done based on this idea of ah, what do we do with our retirees or our elderly who are quite still healthy, but they're just not active in the community. Yeah, so there's a lot to research. I mean, is there another paper in this for you, natanya?
Speaker 3:um, in the field of ikea union, or I mean in there's. Right now I don't have anything planned, but who knows, I might be inspired after this, we might be inspired after this, and then there'll be more research on it. That's just how research works, you know. Sometimes you talk to people, bounce off each idea and then suddenly you have that.
Speaker 1:If there was a grant and an invitation to Japan. Natalia, she's really excellent and really a talent for any scientific group and any university.
Speaker 3:I don't mind.
Speaker 2:Actually, I'm having a webinar with Dr Dean Fido and Dr Yasuhiro Katera next week and we're trying to generate some funding so that they can do more research. So, yeah, I think more research, especially on can it prevent depression, would be awesome. So, hopefully, yeah, I mean I'm finding more and more papers on Ikigai, everything from robot design like how do you design social or care robots to remind the people they serve of their Ikigai to, obviously, what you guys put together. So the learning. I guess the research and the learning never ends. But let's end on a personal note. What about you guys? What are some of your sources of Ikigai?
Speaker 3:I think, if I think about that question, the first thing that comes to my mind is having good coffee with good friends and like having amazing conversation, honestly, like that is something that gets me so excited. Um, but that's a more um, and I think if I do that, I'm like I go out of these like conversation, meeting with friends and like things like that. I'm like life's good. But but other than that, I think I do. Like I mentioned in the beginning, I do really enjoy doing research and writing and reading and lots of things like that, and also like how to, I guess, open up the world to like more broader or like certain concepts, especially in like psychology and like things like that, opening up to like more broader people, and like how to help, ultimately, how to like help people in a impactful way.
Speaker 2:I think yeah I mean, it is very much tied to our social world, but it also can be a private pursuit, but it also can be where you feel of service. So it's very multi-faceted, yeah, and even in in Japan, in Japan they actually have they call them health and ikigai creation advisors, and ikigai is framed as first-person perspective, so what you do for yourself as hobbies or interests, second-person perspective with this social ikigai, things you do with your partner, with your family, with your friends. And then third person, which is, I guess, community or service. So perhaps having, yeah, one of those or a couple of those ikigais, or maybe hundreds, would certainly make life feel worth living yeah what about you, Jürgen?
Speaker 2:What are some sources of Ikigai for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's a form of first and second person Ikigai that I want to mention. For me, I'm sure, a committed teacher and researcher and even more a committed father, and I try to be a good friend to some people. But a few years ago I asked myself, or I felt that there is something which is unfulfilled in my life. As a musician, I'm a dilettante. I can play the guitar a little bit. I don't think I can sing, but others say, well, you can. And I began writing songs, oh nice. And then I made up my mind and I thought, well, I want to have these songs recorded, awesome. And that really made me, I was really frightened.
Speaker 1:A little bit when I called a professional and I had to play, I had to wrap my USB stick and play the music, and then he began headbanging a little bit and said well, that's a song, I can record it if you want. And so that's An Icky Guy. And so my first album came out when I was 64. Congratulations. So I'm a young musician. My second album will appear by the end of this month, and Natalia will be. She's invited to the record police party. So that's that's I. I was always dreamed of making more music, and, and now I found a way to do this together with some professional musicians. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:You've inspired me because I play guitar too, yeah you could dive deeper into that.
Speaker 1:You can try to find the careless responders on Spotify. That's basically it. The main songwriter is called Sugarpill, and you guess who that is All right.
Speaker 2:Well, we might add a link. We can add a link from the show notes to your music, to your albums, as well as the paper.
Speaker 1:That would be cool.
Speaker 2:But yeah, if people want to reach out to you, we'll probably. I don't think you guys have any websites, but I'll put the paper in the show notes. We can put social media if you like, and we'll link to your music. Yeah, thank you very much for your time today and thank you for writing this paper together and it's definitely worth reading. And, yeah, maybe we'll have you both back on again when you've perhaps explored Ikigai as a preventative measure to depression.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having us and for inviting us. It was a pleasure and it was lovely to get to chat with you.
Speaker 1:Likewise, it really was Nick.
Speaker 2:Thanks a lot for having us. My pleasure and we'll do it again.