Therapy by Dummies

Leaving his station, the distraught worker approaches two life-sized padded dummies seated on a platform. Picking up a bamboo stave placed conveniently near by, he ferociously attacks the dummies, slashing and swatting them until his fury is spent.

This strange activity, repeated daily at an Osaka plant of the giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., is actually a form of therapy provided by Board Chairman Konosuke Matsushita as a rather uncommon fringe benefit. In Matsushita's "self-control room," which has attracted thousands of workers, an employee can harmlessly work off his tension, frustration and rage.

Fun-House Mirrors. To help workers relax and perhaps even laugh at themselves, Matsushita placed distorting funhouse mirrors near the entrance to the room. The employee can also enjoy a gym with a punching bag, a pitch for harmony taped by Matsushita, and the services of a professional counselor.

Routine work pressures are high in production-conscious Japan. Besides, his society forces the average employee to cultivate complex, formal relationships with his fellow workers and employers even if he dislikes them. The resulting strain, reports a Japanese official, has greatly increased the number of "industrial ailments" in the 50-million-man work force.

Stomach Ailments. According to a series of surveys, the number of Japanese workers who show preliminary symptoms of neurosis has trebled from 3% to 9% since 1961. One psychiatrist says that about one-third of the salaried work force exhibits these symptoms. In one large corporation, 23.6% of the workers who did not report to work during 1970 complained of stomach ailments, which some psychologists link to nervous tension.

While some workers may have benefited from their opportunity to batter surrogate employers or fellow employees, not all Japanese mental health experts agree that the self-control room is a good idea. Dr. Akira Omi, director of Tokyo's Comprehensive Health Care Institute, believes that such relief from tension is only temporary and could generate more, rather than less tension among workers. "The important thing for us is to start our cure from a more basic level," he says, perhaps by giving workers more leisure time at home. Of prime importance is the easing of what Omi calls Japan's "feverish cult of G.N.P." Superhigh production levels, he contends, "only mean that many of our workers have failed to keep up with them and, as a result, have collapsed."

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