One day, a man who desperately needed someone to talk to sounded intense and depressed.

“I want to take my life now,” he said.

He said he had family problems and was unable to make ends meet.

The listener was moved to tears. The man also broke down in tears.

In the end, the listener advised him, "Go to your psychiatrist right now!” and the man seemed to regain some of his strength.

That real-life drama played out on a radio call-in counseling program titled “Terefon jinsei sodan” (Telephone life advice), which is marking its 60th anniversary this year.

The 20-minute show is broadcast daily on the Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. 

Five radio personalities and 10 respondents listen to the problems of callers.

The subject of the consultation will not be known until the day of the recording. The respondents will work together with the caller, whose faces cannot be seen, to find guidance through dialogue.

RELATIONSHIPS DRIVE CALLERS

Taizo Kato, professor emeritus of clinical psychology at Waseda University, is one of the on-air personalities and has listened to a variety of problems from callers.

Kato said the problems are mainly complaints about low salaries, insufficient pensions and small homes.

Still, compared to half a century ago, people are financially better off, and their worries and burdens are less dire, he said.

“The basic problem is the insecurity of human relationships, such as husband and wife, parents and children, bosses at work, neighbors, and so on,” he said.

Recently, there has been an increase in consultations from grandparents concerned about their grandchildren skipping school.

According to a survey by the education ministry, the number of truancies hit an all-time high in recent years, even though the number of children is decreasing.

However, in many cases, the callers and their grandchildren do not live together.

Kato sees it as "the grandparents have lost their social role due to retirement and want to create a role for themselves, so they bring up the solvable problem of their grandchildren.”

In that case, Kato would ask the grandparents themselves if the real issue is their concern about their post-retirement lives.

Yutaka Morita, a doctor, is one of the on-air listeners on the program, serving since 2023.

His father, Koichiro, was also a respondent.

According to Morita, in many cases, the focus of what is troubling the callers usually lies in other areas than what they are discussing.

Their real concerns are anxiety about their old age, worries about their grandchildren and dissatisfaction with their husbands, among other issues, he said.

“It is important to dig deeper and find the cause of the suffering,” he said, because even if the problem cannot be resolved, some people feel better just by understanding the cause.

CALL-IN SHOW GAINS RESPECT

Kato, who started working as an on-air adviser and later became a personality, said that what has changed over the years is not the content of the consultations, but rather the program's standing.

When he first started appearing on “Terefon jinsei sodan,” he had been asked to speak at two universities, but was later turned down as a lecturer. 

When he asked why, he was told that “it is not appropriate to ask someone who is on a program like telephone life advice to give a lecture.”

At the time, there were many similar programs on radio and TV, and apparently some of them were unpopular, saying that they were "talking humorously about juicy stories.”

After a while, however, both universities told Kato, "We listened to the program. It was a very serious consultation," and they asked him again to give a lecture.

Nowadays, there is even a university seminar that discusses what students think of the opinions of the program's respondent.

Kato said he believes that “hidden anger” lies at the heart of callers' angst, because people are often unable to express their feelings straightforwardly out of concern for the other party.

Therefore, although it is not aired on the program, Kato always tells the caller, "Please express your anger as fully as you can.”

Kato said he does not try to improve callers' mood, but instead tries to find out the root cause of their problems and tells them to face up to them.

“I suppose that mankind will continue to be troubled forever,” Kato said.

He said he always takes on new consultations believing that people will recover.

PRIVACY ASSURED AND NO NAMES

The radio program accepts consultations every Tuesday and Wednesday.

The first call is still received by a wired handset. What has changed over the 60 years is the telephone used by the callers.

When the program started, the phones were shared among several houses. Then, with the proliferation of cordless phones and cellphones, calls could be made without family members being present.

Nowadays, consultations from smartphones are common, but the phones themselves can also be the source of problems, such as being used for infidelity and relationships.

A woman who has been a staff member of the program for 48 years began taking phone calls after she took a counseling course.

Callers range from people in their 20s to those in their 90s.

“I just listen to their concerns, not give an opinion,” the woman said.

Recently, she said, many calls center around the feud  between a mother who is passionate about education and a daughter who cannot live up to her mother’s expectations.

The reason why the program has continued for 60 years, she said, is that "listening to other people's concerns may feel like peeping into other people's homes.”

The program's director decides which callers are best suited for consultations with the five personalities and 10 respondents.

Each session takes from 40 minutes to an hour. Sometimes they last an hour and a half.

The broadcast is only 14 minutes long, so it takes a full day to edit the program to what is aired. 

To protect the privacy of the callers, the show does not ask for their names and does not send them gratuities for their appearances.