A Preliminary Study on Children Who Can Not Encounter Others : Difficulty of Self-formation in Modern Society

Abstract

Children have come to withdraw softly by degrees into themselves from the society. It seems to us that they are hoping to have to do with others but that they are afraid of being involved in others from the bottom of their heart. These soft withdrawals are caused by avoidance of others and as a resutl of that, shallow selves. In this thesis, two episodes are picked up: a 14 years' boy who killed young children bizarrely in Kobe and high school girls who look themselves in the looking glass elaborately in the train. In the first place, I interpret the crime statement of a 14 years old murderer. He describes himeself as the transparent being. It means his ego who lives in a different world from others and cannot communicate with others. In the second place, I explicate high school girls and show that they are seeking for others' sight but that they will not pay no attention to others' feeling. These episodes show commonly that some children demand and refuse others at the same time. Behind such their contradictory attitudes, weak or shallow selves of children are hidden. Children produce a variety of communication styles adaptative to their way of being. Many children go along easily with others' principles. They represent these accomodations as dependence and tuning. Or they refuse or neglect others. The result is that such attitudes are not the essence of the problems but only symptoms and that we have to pay attention to the anxiety of being themselves. Therefore it is important for us to accept their being.