Understanding Grows Through Dialogue: Reflecting on the 3-Part 'Experience Metabolism' Refresh Seminar with Chairman Tateno
Hello. This is the official note of the Japan Career Development Association. Thank you for your continued readership.
From January to May 2026, we held the 'Experience Metabolism' Refresh Seminar with Chairman Tateno over three sessions.
To everyone who participated, thank you once again.
In this article, I would like to reflect on those three sessions and put into words some of the learning that emerged there.
From 'Understanding' to 'Accepting'
Even if you have encountered the term 'Experience Metabolism,' have you ever felt it was somewhat abstract and difficult to grasp?
I feel that this seminar was a time that helped bridge that distance just a little bit.
Rather than explaining the theory, we thought about it while comparing it to our own senses through dialogue. We tried placing a tentative understanding within ourselves, thinking, 'Perhaps it is something like this.'
It was a time where the contours of the concept gradually became visible as we went back and forth through that process many times.
Session 1: What Becomes Visible Through Putting Things into Words
In the first session, dialogue itself was at the center.
Choosing words in response to someone's question and voicing them aloud.
At such times, thoughts and feelings that we hadn't even noticed ourselves can suddenly arise.
Perhaps the practice of 'Experience Metabolism' is already contained within the experience of 'thinking while speaking.'
Accepting one's own words for oneself. That repetition shapes our understanding.
Session 2: Where Does 'Fluctuation' Come From and Where Is It Heading?
In the second session, we used case studies as a guide to focus on the 'fluctuations' that arise within a client.
A certain experience shakes the heart.
How does that shaking turn into words, and how does it change?
What was impressive was the scene where the client felt their own changes by overlaying them onto 'lyrics'.
When you cannot find words for yourself, someone else's expression may gently touch your inner self.
Could it be that this is not just empathy, but also an opportunity to re-examine one's own experience?
It was a time spent thinking about such things together with the participants.
Part 3: Facing the 'Self-Concept'
The third session covered the themes of 'self-concept' and 'borrowed self-concept'.
How do people perceive themselves?
And within that, might there be words or values received from somewhere outside mixed in?
Even when reading the same words, everyone feels differently.
Words that are naturally accepted by one person may cause friction for another.
Focusing on that small sense of discomfort leads to the fluctuation and change of the self-concept.
And that is why I felt that 'what kind of words to hand over next' becomes important.
The perspective of looking at the 'life of the heart'
During the seminar, the expression 'life of the heart' was also shared.
The state of the body appears on the surface relatively clearly.
On the other hand, the state of the heart is often difficult to see and hard to put into words.
Fatigue may accumulate without you knowing, or you may leave small discomforts unaddressed.
Re-examining such states through dialogue with someone.
Perhaps that is also a role of career counseling.
What Grows Through Dialogue
What I felt throughout these three sessions was a chain reaction where one person's words sparked questions in another.
A single comment would shift the atmosphere of the room slightly, opening up new perspectives from there.
It was a time where, rather than finding a single correct answer, each person's understanding seemed to expand little by little.
Perhaps learning is something that grows in just that way.
Looking Ahead
I feel that 'Experience Metabolism' is not something to be memorized as knowledge, but rather a practice of repeatedly accepting and processing things in our daily lives.
That is why there is no need to fully understand it all at once, nor is there any need to rush.
By layering it over our experiences in our respective fields, we can find our own meaning little by little.
I hope to continue carefully nurturing a space that can support such a process.
To everyone who participated, thank you very much.
I would be happy if we could share time together again somewhere, thinking while gathered around the same questions.
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