Atlas›Domain XIV · Western esoteric, divinatory & new spiritual movements›Guide 123
Guide XIV-123

Perfect Liberty Kyōdan

Miki Tokuharu, Miki Tokuchika1924Osaka, Japan
A 36 · L 53 · M 1121 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: Perfect Liberty Kyōdan (PL Kyōdan, "Church of Perfect Liberty", パーフェクト リバティー教団) as described in the Kokugakuin Encyclopedia of Shinto, the Kotobank dictionary entries, McFarland's field description (visits 1956–1957) and Nakamaki's 1991 study of PL in Brazil; PL's own current publications may word things differently [uncertain: not verified]. Where those sources give different dates, both are shown.

What it is. PL is a Japanese new religion of Shinto origin, headquartered in Tondabayashi, Osaka Prefecture (the "Holy Land"). It is an organisation, not a therapy: this guide first describes PL as reference works and scholars describe its own teaching, then sets out the psychotherapist's work with clients who belong to PL, have left it, or grew up in it [source: Encyclopedia of Shinto; Kotobank].

  • Lineage. Miki Tokuharu (1871–1938), a former Zen priest, carried on the teaching of Kanada Tokumitsu (Tokumitsu-kyō). Dates for the start of the movement vary: 1924 (a Tokumitsu-kyō headquarters in Osaka, per the Encyclopedia of Shinto), 1925 (McFarland), and 1931 for the name Hito no Michi Kyōdan (Encyclopedia of Shinto; Nakamaki) [uncertain: sources differ]. Tokuharu and his son Miki Tokuchika were arrested for lèse-majesté and the group was dissolved (1936–1937, sources differ); Tokuharu died in 1938. Tokuchika refounded the group as PL Kyōdan in 1946 at Tosu, Saga Prefecture, and announced the 21 precepts in 1947 [source: Encyclopedia of Shinto; Nakamaki 1991; Kotobank].
  • Leadership. The head is the Oshieoya ("parent of the teaching"); Tokuchika was the second, and the third, Miki Takahito, died in December 2020. A 2023 Weekly Gendai report said no successor had been named and that some members were leaving amid the uncertainty [source: Weekly Gendai 2023; Introvigne 2025].
  • Scale. Claimed membership: about 1.81 million (1990) falling to about 943,000 (2012) in the government Religious Yearbook, as the scholar Shimada Hiromi reports; a nominal 1.25 million in the Encyclopedia of Shinto. Overseas churches are mainly in Brazil and the Americas [source: Shimada 2015; Encyclopedia of Shinto; Nakamaki 1991].

Core idea of change, as PL teaches it. The first precept, "Life is art" (人生は芸術である), holds that each person is an expression of God (Ōmioyakami, "Great Parent God") and becomes happy by expressing their individuality fully in everyday life and work. Illness, accidents and troubles are read as mishirase (warnings) that one has strayed from the way through ego (gasho); relief comes from finding and correcting the deviation, guided by the Oshieoya's divine instruction (mioshie) and by ministers, and through the prayer oyashikiri, in which the Oshieoya is understood to take a believer's trouble upon himself before God [source: McFarland; Introvigne 2025; Nakamaki 1991]. PL has no scripture; authority rests with the Oshieoya's office [source: McFarland].

The therapist's core idea [synthesis]. Change in therapy comes from helping the client understand what PL means in their own life (support, meaning, community, or pressure, guilt, cost) and from making choices about health, money, family and membership freely and with full information. The therapist does not judge the faith, and does not take any role inside it.

2. Framework

How PL is organised (as published and described)

  • Centre and leader. A highly centralised order led by the Oshieoya from the headquarters (Daihonchō) in Tondabayashi; overseas head offices (e.g. Brazil) report to it [source: McFarland; Nakamaki 1991].
  • Ministers. Instructors (kyōshi) and assistant instructors run local churches (kyōkai), hear members' problems and give kaisetsu (explanations of the cause and the remedy). In Brazil in the 1980s, 60–70% of consultations concerned marital or parent–child problems [source: Nakamaki 1991].
  • Path of a member. Nakamaki describes a path from outreach to regular church attendance to training at the Holy Land; daily family devotions, morning worship at church, year-end oyashikiri petitions and a January–February "fortune training" [source: Nakamaki 1991]. McFarland describes four-day youth training periods that included manual work on the headquarters grounds (1957) [source: McFarland].
  • Texts and publications. No scripture; the 21 precepts (処世訓, shoseikun), a guidebook and a prayer book; the monthly magazine Geijutsu Seikatsu ("Art Life") [source: Kotobank; Wikipedia, uncertain: secondary, unverified].
  • Institutions. PL Hospital, health-management centres, PL Gakuen schools (whose baseball team was widely known until it was discontinued in 2016), a golf course, and the 180-metre Peace Tower (1970) memorialising all war dead [source: Encyclopedia of Shinto; Kotobank; Introvigne 2025].
  • The PL fireworks. The Kyōsosai PL Hanabi Geijutsu ("Founder's Festival PL Art of Fireworks") is held every 1 August at the headquarters as a religious rite honouring the founders; Kotobank describes it as an offering to the founder's spirit, and Shimada reports that the founder asked for his death to be celebrated with fireworks. PL presents it as "fireworks art", part of living life as art [source: Kotobank; Shimada 2015; Wikipedia, uncertain: secondary, unverified].
  • Costs. Monetary offerings (hōshō) accompany requests for divine instruction and prayer [source: Introvigne 2025]. Any published fee schedule is [uncertain: not verified].

Phases of the therapist's work [synthesis]

No source gives a session count or format for this work; pace it by the client's needs.

  1. Engagement and assessment. Goal: understand the client's relation to PL (current member, second generation, former member, family member) in their own words; complete the Cultural Formulation Interview; screen for risk, medical delay and financial strain. Move on when the client's own goals are clear and safety issues are handled.
  2. Formulation. Goal: a shared picture of how PL's teaching, community and practices help or burden the client, separated from any mental-health condition. Move on when the client agrees with the picture or has amended it.
  3. Active work. Goal: work on the agreed problems (guilt from the mishirase idea, family conflict, gender-role strain, money, decisions about staying or leaving, grief over changes in the community). Move on when the client reports progress on their own goals.
  4. Consolidation and ending. Goal: plan for supports (religious or secular), relapse signs and future contact.

3. Guiding principles

  • Describe PL as PL describes itself first. Practical meaning: use the client's terms (mishirase, mioshie, oyashikiri, Oshieoya, "life is art") and ask what they mean to this client before adding your own view [synthesis].
  • Attribute, do not adjudicate. Practical meaning: say "PL teaches that…"; treat healing through oyashikiri as a belief and a testimony. Evidence status: claims of healing rest on testimony (e.g. accounts in Nakamaki 1991); no controlled evaluation is documented in the sources cited here [uncertain].
  • No role inside the faith. Practical meaning: the therapist never gives kaisetsu, interprets a mishirase, performs or imitates oyashikiri, or acts as an instructor [synthesis].
  • Non-pathologising assessment. Practical meaning: reading illness as a divine warning is a shared religious belief, not a symptom; assess for psychosis, depression, OCD-type scrupulosity or trauma only from evidence beyond the belief itself [synthesis].
  • Medical care stays with doctors. Practical meaning: PL runs a hospital and health centres, so medical care is not opposed in principle; still check whether any illness is being left untreated while waiting on prayer, and route medical decisions to the client's physician [source: Encyclopedia of Shinto; synthesis].
  • Watch the money. Practical meaning: ask, without accusation, about offerings and their effect on household finances; a Japanese court has ordered PL to repay a member's donations (see section 5) [source: Introvigne 2025].
  • Client sets the direction on membership. Practical meaning: staying, reducing involvement and leaving are all valid outcomes; the therapist neither recruits nor de-converts [synthesis].
  • Name no one. Practical meaning: refer to ministers and family members by role in notes and supervision; never name minors [synthesis].
  • Cultural humility. Practical meaning: PL members may be Japanese, Japanese-descended or, as in Brazil, mostly non-Japanese; ask, do not assume [source: Nakamaki 1991; synthesis].
  • Ethics code. Practical meaning: competence in religious diversity, avoiding multiple relationships and respecting autonomy are general professional duties (APA Ethics Code, https://www.apa.org/ethics/code) [uncertain: not verified]; the religious and spiritual competencies of Vieten et al. 2013 guide the stance [uncertain: not verified].

4. Intervention inventory

Part A describes PL's own practices so the therapist can recognise and explore them; the therapist does not perform or teach any of them. Steps are given only in public outline; the words of PL prayers are not reproduced. Part B gives the therapist's own interventions.

Part A. PL's practices (for recognition and exploration)

A1. "Life is art" and the 21 precepts

  • Purpose (as PL teaches it): Guide everyday conduct. The precepts, announced in 1947, include that life is art, that the self is an expression of God, that the ego should be set aside, that everything reflects like a mirror, and that one should live in perfect liberty. "Art" covers ordinary work such as washing or sweeping done as self-expression [source: McFarland; Kotobank; Encyclopedia of Shinto].
  • Outline: Members study the precepts and apply them to family life and work; the "PL General Instructions" give guidance for occupations such as merchants, farmers and nurses. Family teaching sets an order of husband, wife, then children, with men leading and children seen as mirrors of their parents [source: Nakamaki 1991].
  • Example language (illustrative): "When you say your life should be art, what would a good day look like for you?" / "Which precept helps you most at the moment, and is there one that feels heavy?"
  • Watch for: The precepts can support purpose and self-respect; strain can arise where the mirror teaching leads a client to blame themselves for a partner's or child's behaviour, or where the gender-role teaching meets abuse or control at home [synthesis].

A2. Mishirase (misfortune as divine warning)

  • Purpose (as PL teaches it): Illness, accidents and troubles are signs from God that one has strayed from the way through ego (gasho); the remedy is to identify and correct the deviation [source: McFarland; Introvigne 2025].
  • Outline: The member reflects on their conduct and seeks guidance from a minister or the Oshieoya [source: McFarland].
  • Example language (illustrative): "When this illness came, what did you take it to be telling you?" / "Does that reading bring you comfort, or guilt, or both?"
  • Watch for: Self-blame for illness or for a family member's misfortune; delay in seeking medical care while searching for the spiritual cause; children told their illness reflects parental fault [synthesis].

A3. Mioshie (divine instruction) and kaisetsu (minister's explanation)

  • Purpose (as PL teaches it): Give the believer specific guidance on the cause of a trouble and how to correct it. McFarland describes believers receiving a kokoroe (instruction) from the Master Teacher or a sanctioned consultant [source: McFarland].
  • Outline: A believer usually requests mioshie in writing to headquarters, with prayer and an offering; at church an instructor hears the problem and gives a kaisetsu explaining causes and solutions [source: Introvigne 2025; Nakamaki 1991].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What guidance did you receive, and how did you feel acting on it?" / "If the guidance and your own sense of things pointed different ways, how would you decide?"
  • Watch for: Decisions about health, marriage, work or money handed over entirely to instruction; repeated requests to reduce anxiety (reassurance-seeking); costs of repeated offerings [synthesis].

A4. Oyashikiri (prayer of the Oshieoya)

  • Purpose (as published and described): A prayer in which the spiritual head offers himself to God and pledges to remove a person's troubles or answer their prayer. Nakamaki dates its revelation to Tokuchika in a vision on 27 May 1958. Related rites are shikiri (遂断) and omigawari no shinji, in which the leader is said to bear a believer's suffering vicariously [source: Nakamaki 1991; Kotobank; McFarland].
  • Outline: In church, after hearing the problem and giving kaisetsu, the instructor performs oyashikiri as mediator before God; requests may be made before the sacred object (omitama) with an offering showing sincerity (makoto). Members also submit year-end oyashikiri petitions. Small home prayer places (casa de oyashikiri) were used in Brazil. The prayer's words are not reproduced here [source: Nakamaki 1991; Introvigne 2025].
  • Healing claims (attributed): Members and ministers report healings after oyashikiri, including of skin disease, back pain, neuroses and illnesses doctors had given up on; Nakamaki notes that miracle-faith alone did not keep members (a dropout rate around 30%). Evidence status: testimony only; no controlled evaluation in the sources cited here [source: Nakamaki 1991; uncertain].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What happened for you when oyashikiri was done for you?" / "Alongside the prayer, what is your doctor saying about this?"
  • Watch for: Comfort and hope are common; watch for medical delay, feelings of unworthiness if no relief comes, and a sense of owing the leader for his vicarious suffering [synthesis].

A5. Daily devotions, morning worship and church visits

  • Purpose (as described): Keep the believer close to the teaching and the community. Members keep daily family devotions and attend morning worship at church; one member was described as attending daily for 21 days [source: Nakamaki 1991].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What does the morning service give you?" / "How does it fit with work and family at the moment?"
  • Watch for: Social support and structure; or time demands that strain family and work, and guilt over missed attendance [synthesis].

A6. Training at the Holy Land and fortune training

  • Purpose (as described): Deepen commitment. Members are urged to move from church attendance to training at headquarters; an early slogan said one Holy Land session equals a year of morning worship. McFarland (1957) describes four-day youth training periods including manual labour; Nakamaki describes January–February fortune training with a "fortune paper" said to guarantee happiness if observed [source: Nakamaki 1991; McFarland].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What was the training like for you, day to day?" / "How did you feel when you came home?"
  • Watch for: Positive belonging; pressure to attend, costs, and anxiety about "failing" fortune guidance [synthesis].

A7. Offerings (hōshō) and misasage

  • Purpose (as described): Monetary offerings in consecrated envelopes accompany requests for instruction and prayer as a sign of sincerity; misasage (self-offering) is taught as an ethic for work and trade; members in Brazil gave donations before sales trips [source: Introvigne 2025; Nakamaki 1991].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Can we look together at how giving fits with your budget this year?" / "Has anyone ever suggested a larger gift would help a problem resolve?"
  • Watch for: Giving beyond means, debt, giving tied to fear about illness or family troubles, and second-generation members under pressure (see section 5) [synthesis].

A8. The PL Art of Fireworks and cultural activities

  • Purpose (as described): The 1 August Kyōsosai PL Hanabi Geijutsu honours the founders as a religious rite and expresses "life is art" as fireworks art; churches also run flower arranging, choirs, sports and public-service projects [source: Kotobank; Shimada 2015; Nakamaki 1991].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What does the August festival mean to you and your family?"
  • Watch for: These events often carry warm memories even for people who have left; grief over the festival's smaller scale or the community's decline may surface (Shimada noted a smaller display in 2014) [source: Shimada 2015; synthesis].

Part B. The psychotherapist's interventions [synthesis unless a source is given]

B1. Client-led exploration of meaning

  • Purpose: Learn what PL means in this client's life (faith, community, family history, identity) before any problem-focused work. Use at intake and whenever PL comes up.
  • Steps: (1) Ask permission to talk about faith. (2) Ask the client to describe their involvement in their own words: member, minister, second generation, former member, relative. (3) Note their terms (mishirase, mioshie, Oshieoya) and ask what each means to them. (4) Ask what helps and what weighs on them. (5) Reflect back without evaluating the teaching.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'd like to understand what PL means for you. Would it be all right to talk about it?" / "What would you want me to know so I don't misunderstand?"
  • Watch for: Working when the client corrects you freely and uses their own words; caution if they seem to be guarding the faith from you, which may signal fear of judgement.

B2. Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI)

  • Purpose: Structure assessment of cultural identity, explanations of the problem, supports and stressors, and the clinician–client relationship, using the DSM-5-TR CFI and its supplementary module on spirituality, religion and moral traditions [uncertain: not verified].
  • Steps: (1) Use the core CFI to ask how the client and their community explain the problem; a client may frame illness as mishirase. (2) Ask what help they have sought (minister, mioshie, oyashikiri, doctors). (3) Use the spirituality module to map practices, community roles and any religious or spiritual problem. (4) Ask about the client's language, migration and family background (PL communities in the Americas are mixed in ancestry) [source: Nakamaki 1991]. (5) Feed this into a shared formulation. Where relevant, ICD-10-CM Z65.8 ("other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances", the code for the DSM-5-TR category Religious or Spiritual Problem) can be recorded [source: ICD-10-CM Z65.8 (Unbound Medicine)]; DSM-5-TR wording [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "How would people in your church explain what you're going through?" / "How do you explain it yourself?"
  • Watch for: Gaps between the client's explanation and their community's, which often point to conflict worth exploring.

B3. Differential assessment without pathologising belief

  • Purpose: Separate shared religious belief from depression, psychosis, mania, OCD-type scrupulosity, trauma or complicated grief.
  • Steps: (1) Treat beliefs shared by PL (illness as warning, the Oshieoya's vicarious suffering) as normal for the group. (2) Look for signs beyond the belief: idiosyncratic content the community would not recognise, functional decline, sleep loss, hallucinations, grandiosity. (3) Check for excessive guilt or compulsive checking of conduct for faults, or repeated requests for instruction that bring no lasting relief (scrupulosity). (4) Ask, with consent, how members of their church view the experience. (5) Treat any identified condition with standard care, adapted to the faith.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would others at your church see this the same way, or is it something more personal to you?"
  • Watch for: Over-reading belief as illness, and the opposite error of missing illness because it is framed religiously.

B4. Medical-care check

  • Purpose: Make sure no physical illness goes untreated while the client relies on mishirase reflection or oyashikiri.
  • Steps: (1) Ask about any current illness and who is treating it. (2) Ask whether they have delayed or stopped care while waiting on prayer or instruction. (3) Note that PL itself runs a hospital and health centres, which may help the client hold faith and medicine together [source: Encyclopedia of Shinto]. (4) Encourage contact with their physician; never advise on medicines. (5) For a child, act on safeguarding duties (B9).
  • Example language (illustrative): "Many people use prayer and medical care together. What does your doctor say about this?"
  • Watch for: Hidden symptoms, cancelled appointments, or shame about seeing a doctor.

B5. Working with guilt and self-blame from the mishirase teaching

  • Purpose: Ease harsh self-blame for illness, accidents or a family member's troubles, within the client's own framework.
  • Steps: (1) Explore the specific blame story ("my child's illness is my fault"). (2) Ask whether their tradition also offers compassion or growth (PL teaches that everything progresses and develops) [source: Wikipedia, uncertain: secondary, unverified]. (3) Separate responsibility (what can be changed) from blame. (4) Use standard cognitive or compassion-focused methods, worded in the client's terms. (5) If the client wishes, suggest discussing the blame story with a trusted minister.
  • Example language (illustrative): "If a friend at church were in your place, would you tell them this was all their doing?"
  • Watch for: Less rumination and self-attack; caution if the work feels like an attack on the faith to the client.

B6. Financial review of offerings

  • Purpose: Protect the client from financial harm without judging religious giving.
  • Steps: (1) Ask how much they give, how often and for what (instruction, prayer, petitions, training). (2) Compare with income, debts and dependants. (3) Ask whether giving was ever linked to solving illness or family trouble, or pressed on them at a vulnerable time. (4) Help the client set their own limit. (5) If they want to recover money, refer to a lawyer or consumer advice service; in Japan, 2023 legislation and a 2025 Kochi District Court ruling against PL show that civil routes exist (see section 5) [source: Introvigne 2025].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What would feel like the right amount to give, if no one else were asking?"
  • Watch for: Shame, secrecy from family, or fear that cutting back will bring misfortune.

B7. Assessing the leader relationship and high-control dynamics

  • Purpose: Understand how much authority the Oshieoya and ministers hold over the client's decisions, and whether this feels chosen.
  • Steps: (1) Ask which decisions they take to a minister or to mioshie. (2) Ask what happens if they disagree or do not follow guidance. (3) Ask about time, money and relationships outside PL. (4) Note that McFarland describes PL as "highly centralized" with authority in the Oshieoya's office [source: McFarland]. (5) Reflect patterns back and let the client judge them.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When guidance doesn't fit what you want, what do you usually do?"
  • Watch for: Fear of punishment-like misfortune for disobedience, isolation from non-members, inability to decide alone.

B8. Family, gender roles and safety

  • Purpose: Support marital and parent–child concerns, which are the most common topics members bring to ministers [source: Nakamaki 1991].
  • Steps: (1) Explore how PL's family teaching (husband, wife, children order; children as mirrors of parents) shapes the client's family life [source: Nakamaki 1991]. (2) Screen for domestic abuse and coercive control privately. (3) If abuse is present, prioritise safety planning and referral, regardless of teaching. (4) Otherwise, work on communication and roles in ways the client chooses.
  • Example language (illustrative): "How are decisions made at home, and how do you feel about that?"
  • Watch for: A client accepting harm as their own spiritual failing.

B9. Second-generation members and children

  • Purpose: Address the experience of people raised in PL (in Japan, shūkyō nisei, "religion second generation"), and safeguard children.
  • Steps: (1) Explore the client's upbringing: devotions, training, schooling, family giving. (2) Separate their own beliefs from their parents'. (3) For a child currently in care: check medical needs are met, that illness is not met only with blame or prayer, and that assessment for developmental or mental-health conditions is not replaced by spiritual explanation. (4) Follow local safeguarding law; seek the child's assent and parents' consent. (5) Note that a Japanese court ruling in 2025 concerned a second-generation member's donations [source: Introvigne 2025].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What did you believe as a child, and what do you believe now?"
  • Watch for: Loyalty conflict with parents, guilt about questioning, and identity confusion.

B10. Leaving, reducing involvement, and religious trauma

  • Purpose: Support a client who is leaving or has left PL.
  • Steps: (1) Clarify whether they want to leave, reduce involvement, or stay differently. (2) Explore losses: community, festival, family ties, meaning. (3) Assess for religious trauma: intrusive fear of misfortune, guilt, shame, anxiety. (4) Use standard trauma-informed approaches, at the client's pace. (5) Help build new support and meaning, religious or secular.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What do you miss, and what are you glad to have left behind?"
  • Watch for: Fear that misfortune will follow leaving; grief over the warm parts of membership; family rifts. Weekly Gendai (2023) reported members leaving amid a succession dispute, so some clients may be leaving a community in turmoil [source: Weekly Gendai 2023].

B11. Family members' concerns

  • Purpose: Support relatives worried about a member's giving, time or health.
  • Steps: (1) Listen to specific concerns. (2) Distinguish faith differences from concrete harms (debt, untreated illness, abuse). (3) Encourage keeping contact and respect rather than confrontation. (4) Signpost legal, financial or safeguarding help where harms are concrete.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Which worries are about what they believe, and which are about harm you can see?"
  • Watch for: Pressure to "deprogramme" or force a relative out, which harms relationships.

B12. Liaison with the community and referral

  • Purpose: Involve PL ministers only when the client wishes, and refer onward when needed.
  • Steps: (1) Ask if the client would like their minister involved and for what. (2) Get written consent and agree what will be shared. (3) Refer to medical, psychiatric, legal, debt or safeguarding services as needed. (4) For clients seeking accurate information on PL, suggest scholarly sources.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would it help to bring your minister into this, or would you rather keep it separate?"
  • Watch for: The minister's guidance conflicting with the treatment plan; keep the client as the decision-maker.

B13. Keeping the therapist role clear

  • Purpose: Avoid dual roles.
  • Steps: (1) Never give kaisetsu, interpret a mishirase, perform prayer, or attend PL rites in a professional role. (2) Keep any personal faith out of the work unless self-disclosure clearly serves the client. (3) If you are or were a PL member, seek supervision and consider referral.
  • Example language (illustrative): "That's a question for your minister. Here, I'd like to help you think about what you want."
  • Watch for: Client asking you to tell them what their misfortune means.

5. Handling problems

Guidance below is [synthesis] unless a source is named.

  • Client fears the therapist will dismiss PL. Say plainly that you will not judge their faith and are interested in how it shapes their life; show it by using their terms accurately (B1).
  • Client wants the therapist to interpret a misfortune or endorse an instruction. Decline warmly, return the question to the client's own reflection or to their minister (B13). Do not offer a counter-interpretation.
  • Stuck in self-blame. If mishirase guilt does not shift, check for depression or scrupulosity (B3), and widen the frame using the client's own tradition, or a minister the client trusts, if they wish (B5).
  • Medical delay. If a client delays treatment while waiting for prayer or instruction, state your concern clearly, encourage contact with their physician, and document. For a child, follow safeguarding procedures (B4, B9). Never advise on medicines.
  • Financial strain or pressure to give. Use B6. Where a client wants to recover donations: as Introvigne reports from Japanese media, in February 2025 the Kochi District Court ordered PL Kyōdan to repay about 9.86 million yen in donations plus damages (about 11 million yen in total) to a second-generation member, finding the solicitation "anti-social" given the member's fragile mental state and financial hardship [source: Introvigne 2025; court record and any appeal [uncertain: not verified]]. Refer to a lawyer for any legal question; do not name the plaintiff.
  • Ambivalence about leaving. Do not push in either direction. Map losses and gains (B10); note that people may stay with reduced involvement.
  • Fear of misfortune after leaving. Treat as anxiety maintained by a learned belief; work gently with exposure to ordinary life without rituals only with consent, at the client's pace, and stop if distress becomes overwhelming. Avoid ridiculing the belief.
  • Overwhelm or trauma symptoms. Slow down, stabilise first (grounding, sleep, support), and use trauma-focused care only when the client is ready.
  • Non-adherence to therapy tasks. Check whether tasks clash with devotions, training or family duties; adjust timing rather than framing it as resistance.
  • Ruptures. If the client feels you criticised PL or its leader, acknowledge the impact, clarify your intent, and invite correction. Repair is itself useful work for clients from hierarchical settings.
  • Community in turmoil. The death of the third Oshieoya in 2020 and a reported unresolved succession (Weekly Gendai, 2023), declining membership and a smaller fireworks festival (Shimada) may bring grief, uncertainty or anger to members [source: Weekly Gendai 2023; Shimada 2015]. Validate these as losses.
  • Conflict between the minister's guidance and the treatment plan. Keep the client as decision-maker; with consent, discuss the clash directly with the client or, if they wish, with the minister (B12).
  • Gender-role tension or abuse. Safety first; the client's acceptance of a teaching does not lower your duty to assess and act on abuse (B8).
  • Family worried about a member. Use B11; discourage forced exits or coercive interventions.
  • Avoid pejorative labels. Describe concrete behaviours (pressure to give, isolation, medical delay) instead of labels.

Sources

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