[Special Feature: 125 Years Since the Establishment of Integrated Education] Yoko Hamada: Spending Adolescence at Affiliated Schools—From a Psychoanalytic Perspective

2023/10/05

I am starting to write this manuscript while the excitement of Keio Senior High School's great performance at Koshien has not yet cooled down. I felt that the sight of the members playing freely at Koshien and the gaze of the manager watching over them truly represents the meaning of spending adolescence at affiliated schools.

While preparing for my final lecture in February 2022, I had the opportunity to look back on the days I spent at Keio University since entering Chutobu Junior High School, and I was able to trace the path from the questions I felt during adolescence to my aspiration to become a psychiatrist in my own way. Therefore, I would like to think about spending adolescence at affiliated schools based on my own personal history.

Adolescence is a process of great change, like a larva becoming an adult through a pupa. In this article, the biological process of becoming an adult from a child, "puberty," and the psychosocial period until becoming an independent member of society, "adolescence," are combined and expressed as "adolescence."

Psychoanalytically, there are two major tasks to be achieved during adolescence. First, adapting to rapid physical changes from childhood to adulthood and becoming aware of and able to control sexual impulses; and second, taking emotional distance from parents, establishing ego identity, and becoming independent from the family in which one was born and raised.

Let's look at the process in more detail by dividing adolescence into three stages. The early stage, which corresponds to the junior high school level, is a period characterized by rapid physical changes and increased drives. The sense of discomfort where feelings cannot keep up with the changing body, and the irritability brought about by undifferentiated sexual impulses, can sometimes manifest as violent behavior, self-harm, eating disorders, or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Usually, these feelings of discomfort and irritability are gradually resolved through intimate interactions with friends of the same age and sex, or through sports, cultural, and artistic activities. At the same time, children who have more experiences outside the family begin to see their parents relatively and start to take psychological distance from them.

In the middle stage, which corresponds to the high school level, both men and women approach adult body types, and gender identity is formed according to their own gender identity. Sexual impulses also become conscious as more sexual drives rather than mere irritability or violent behavior. At the same time, it becomes a challenge to the values (superego) incorporated from parents during childhood. During this period, the cognitive thinking ability of the brain also develops, and the ability to read difficult books and debate grows. They often try to argue down their parents. Friendships and extracurricular activities continue to be important.

And the late stage, which corresponds to the college-age years, is the time to establish Ego Identity. Through specialized learning, extracurricular activities, part-time jobs, internships, and interactions with peers of the same generation, they try out various possibilities, select from among them, create themselves as psychosocially responsible adults, and leave the home where they were born and raised.

As mentioned above, when children begin to see their parents relatively during adolescence, they experience disillusionment with their parents. This becomes an internal object loss—losing the ideal image of parents held since early childhood. Okonogi named this "Adolescent Mourning" *1. Mild symptoms of anxiety and depression are seen, but it is a necessary process for separation from parents and independence in adolescence. What softens this is a new existence that replaces the parents, an older brother or sister-like figure. This is called a "new object." Adolescent children need to break down the values and superego inherited from their parents and rebuild them as their own, and this also has the role of promoting that process.

It is a bit embarrassing, but I would like to look back on my own adolescence spent at Chutobu Junior High School and the Girls' Senior High School.

When I entered Chutobu Junior High School, there was no teacher's platform in the classroom. In a flat classroom, it was very fresh that the teachers treated the students as equals. In club activities, I joined the girls' softball club, and at the first summer training camp I participated in, an incident occurred where I was disillusioned with adults. Thinking about it now, it was a trivial matter, but to me, who was just entering adolescence and full of a sense of justice at the time, "dirty adults" were unforgivable. Around 1970, there were the Security Treaty protests and campus disputes, and the world was in turmoil. I was obsessed with late-night radio broadcasts, taking a nap after dinner and waking up in the middle of the night to listen to the radio. I felt as if the adult world during the day was dirty and wrong, and the world of the night that the personality spoke to was the real one. I might have taken a quite rude attitude toward the teachers, whom I probably regarded as representatives of "dirty adults." It was a time when I felt confused by my own emotions.

I went on to the Girls' Senior High School, and since there was no softball club, I was invited by a senior to join the mountaineering club. During summer vacation, I went to the mountains with a horizontal backpack made of canvas stuffed with a tent and food. Carrying a heavy backpack, I climbed in a party with teachers, seniors, and friends, and camped in tents amidst a profusion of alpine plants. In the midst of great nature, I keenly felt how tiny human existence is.

Another major experience during my high school years was a short-term study abroad program at Punahou School in Hawaii, which I participated in during the summer vacation of my second year. This was a six-week program in which high school students from Japan and abroad, centered on Keio University's three high schools, participated. For the first time, I lived away from my family, stayed with a host family overseas, and experienced a different culture. The final assignment of this program was a presentation on the theme "What’s American identity?" At that time, it was before I knew Erikson, but I encountered the word "identity," and it was a six-week period during which I thought deeply about America, Hawaii, and about Japan and myself. I spent a very intense summer with friends, studying, playing, and falling in love. This summer of 2023 marks exactly 50 years since that short-term study abroad in Hawaii, and a reunion was held. Many friends gathered, and memories blossomed while looking at old photos. Even though hair has thinned and wrinkles have increased, once we started talking, it was as if we had boarded a time machine and returned to "that summer" in an instant. It was a six-week period that was so stimulating and deeply engraved in my memory.

Why I loathed "dirty adults" so much in junior high school, that sense of discomfort with myself, and encountering Erikson and psychoanalysis through the word "identity" I met in Hawaii, were the triggers for me to aspire to become a psychiatrist.

Looking back on my own adolescence after studying psychoanalytic developmental theory, I could understand that that loathing had an aspect where my confusion toward my own maturing mind and body and disillusionment with my parents were displaced onto adults in society, and my devotion to late-night broadcasts was perhaps a manifestation of adolescent mourning. And the mountain trips and short-term study abroad during my high school years promoted the process of separation from parents. In the midst of great nature and a cross-cultural environment, I spent time with friends, and my gender identity was gradually established. Through thinking about identity and interacting with seniors who were new objects, I believe I was able to nurture my own goal of becoming a psychiatrist from something vague to something gradually clear.

Looking back on my junior and senior high school years spent freely like this, I feel the benefits of having spent my adolescence at Keio University's affiliated schools.

The most obvious benefit is not being hindered by studying for entrance exams. In affiliated schools where recommendation to Keio University is almost guaranteed, many students can engage in studies, extracurricular activities, and other activities from their own internal motivation, and there are many systems available for students to utilize, such as studying abroad.

Secondly, the connection with senior university students is strong. Just as the existence of student coaches was highlighted by the media in the success of the Juku high school baseball team, university students are involved as coaches in many extracurricular activities. In the Girls' Senior High School mountaineering club as well, many university students came to the training camps. Seniors become new objects for students and promote the creation of new values for them. They also become role models for imagining university life.

And while it is as natural as air, the most important thing is that the entire middle and high school student body is protected by an environment with a certain set of values. This may be the power of Keio University's tradition, but the spirit of independence and self-respect and Fukuzawa-ism are shared by the faculty, staff, seniors, and others surrounding the students. As seen in the success of the Juku high school baseball team, respecting each student as an individual is done very naturally. I myself had the illusion that I had grown up freely on my own, but looking back now, I realize that I was able to do so thanks to the adults who watched over me even when I did somewhat dangerous things. This environment of affiliated schools is a "holding environment" in psychoanalytic terms, creating a space where students can act freely and with peace of mind.

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my parents and teachers who allowed me to spend my adolescence in such a blessed environment. However, at the same time, I think we must not forget to be aware that we are blessed. As the excessively large support at Koshien was criticized, there is a risk in spending time only among those who share the same values. Just as one grows by shedding the shell of a pupa, it is also necessary to look toward the wider world.

Finally, it goes without saying that adolescent development is greatly influenced by what kind of family relationships were experienced before then. In modern times, family structures are diversifying, and it is not uncommon for students to have suffered psychological trauma before entering junior high school, making the developmental process of adolescence more complex. However, precisely because it is becoming more complex, I believe that spending adolescence in the stable environment of Keio University's integrated education, which has a 125-year tradition, has a very important meaning for healthy physical and mental development throughout life.