Nathania Rochelle and Jürgen Hoyer’s Conversation on the Intersection of Behavioral Activation and Ikigai

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Composing a Paper on Behavioral Activation and Ikigai

Nathania and Jürgen discuss their co-authored paper, ‘A Cross-Cultural Conceptual Comparison of Behavioral Activation and Ikigai.’ Nathania, in search of a bachelor thesis topic, reached out to Jürgen, who introduced her to the concepts of behavioral activation and ikigai.

Jürgen, inspired by Ken Mogi's book on ikigai and its similarities to the Western therapy technique of behavioral activation, saw an opportunity to bridge Eastern and Western approaches to motivation and fulfillment. What started as a small project grew into a groundbreaking study, eventually published in an international scientific journal.

From a mini bachelor’s thesis to something much larger

Nick: So in this article, you propose that cultural bridging is possible between behavioral activation and ikigai, as they share the same basic principle, the importance of an individual's values of becoming motivated and guiding everyday action decisions. So I probably should ask, how did this paper come about?

Nathania: I think this paper came about, this is a little bit more personal, but I think it's fine if I explain it as well. I was looking for topics for my bachelor thesis, actually. So I was just writing on professor and asking, ‘hey, do you have any topics?’

And I come across Jürgen, and I just wrote him, ‘Hey, do you probably have some topic?’ And he brought up this topic, actually. So this started off as like a mini bachelor thesis in order for me to get my degree, actually.

But then it became something a lot bigger, I guess, something that I did not quite expect that it would be like that. I mean, when I remember writing my bachelor thesis, I had tons of fun doing it, just reading about ikigai, reading about behavioral activation, and learning about all of these things that are similar, and some of them are not similar. Maybe coming from an Eastern background as well, that topic, obviously, is very interesting to me.

And having study here, obviously, I am also German trained, in a way, because I do my university and education here to become a psychologist, so I think that really sparks my interest in it. And yeah, that's how I came across ikigai. And I guess, the topic, as well, you've seen it in bookstores, too—books about it and things like that.

Nick: Okay, so was it Jürgen, you actually introduced ikigai to Nathania?

Jürgen: That's correct. And you can call it a fortunate accident, because I came across ikigai, I can’t exactly remember, but I guess that some algorithm behind Instagram was the cause. So I just came across ikigai, I found it interesting, and I bought the book by Ken Mogi on ikigai to give it to my wife, because I thought it would be an interesting read.

Then I opened up the book and I saw the five principles, and that gave me goosebumps, because immediately I saw the similarity between this Eastern concept and the Western strategy in treatment that I've been using a lot during recent years, which is called behavioral activation.

So the reasons why we become active are maybe shared knowledge across cultures, but they may be turned differently, and the strategies to arrive at a fulfilling form of activity are different ones. And so I thought both strategies could benefit from each other and help us to become more flexible in finding our motivations and and ikigai moments.

That was my thinking, but I've enough to do as a therapist, as a professor, as a researcher. And then, Nathania asked me for a topic, so guess what I told her? I'm actually fortunate that our motivations really came together. Nathania, I must say, is so talented, because it's quite unusual that a bachelor thesis finally makes it into a scientific international journal with external review, which it did. Thanks to Nathania.

Behavioral Activation Explained: How It Can Help You Overcome Depression

Jürgen explores behavioral activation, a therapy concept for treating depression. Behavioral activation is based on the idea that depressed individuals engage in too few rewarding activities, and increasing their activity level can boost their mood.

Identifying purposeful actions that align with your values

Nick: Perhaps we should take time to touch on behavioral activation, what that exactly means. So maybe Jürgen, would you like to touch on that? Because I think you have a strong history with that, a long history.

Jürgen: Yeah, I'm a psychotherapist and I'm concentrating in research and in treatment on anxiety disorders and affective disorders, most importantly, depression. The treatment concepts for depression, many of them are coming from behavior therapy; and one of them, the easiest principle, is called behavioral activation, and that's been developed in the United States by a group around Peter Lewinsohn and others, also a famous depression theorist, Aaron Beck, integrated behavioral activation in his concept, which had dominated depression treatment for decades.

But behavioral activation was not attractive. The basic idea behind behavioral activation is depressed people suffer from doing too little rewarding activities, so what would help them is increase their activation rate. Really, really simple thinking, but guess how depressed people find that? I mean, it's a little bit ironic even, because that's exactly what they can't do, engage in things.

And so behavioral activation got a reformulation in the 90s and beginning 2000 years, that rethinking of behavioral activation integrated value work. So what your values in your life that you are really committed to. And so there was a shift in the conceptualization of behavioral activation from just doing more pleasurable things toward finding committed action for yourself that serve your values.

Because you cannot do the whole day pleasurable things, and definitely not as long as you're depressed. But if you want to get back into life, it's very helpful to do simple tasks. After having done them, you will feel better than before, and that's really a life principle grounded on wisdom. I mean, do your thing as small it might be, it gives you better feelings than not doing it. That's the motivational motor within behavioral activation.

But how do you find the right action? That's quite different. And I don't think that this is different from ikigai, and I don't think that there are such strategic ways within ikigai like they are in behavioral activation, and that is called Activity Monitoring and Scheduling; it's a form of an inductive method.

So you're just monitoring your daily activities, and in your activity, in new protocol, you evaluate how your mood was during and after an activity. And doing this avoids what we call recall biased. Because if you ask a depressed person after a week if there had been any enjoyable activities, a depressed person, the mindset is so negative that the person will answer no.

But if you look at activities when they occur, you find out that not all activities are giving you bad mood, some give you euphoric or wonderful or happy mood, but make make you feel okay. And step by step, these kinds of activities over other activities, especially depressogenic, as we say, activities like withdrawal, like staying in bed, engaging in negative thinking, paying attention to your own feelings of insufficience and things like that.

So any activity, even on really small matters, are beneficial compared to just staying in a depressed mood and and remaining passive. So that's the idea behind behavioral activation. It's a well tested method, it's as beneficial as the best behavioral methods and treatments, but it's simpler, because that's the basic idea.

And yeah, we have empirical data enough to say that's helping people out of depression, not all of them, of course, but in many cases, even severe cases, that has been shown that behavioral activation really works in treatment. And to say the last sentence, what I'm thinking is ikigai can be a close neighbor of behavioral activation in the field of preventing to ever fall into the depressive hole.

Nathania’s Take on Ikigai

Nathania shares her approach to ikigai as she compares it to behavioral activation in her paper. She believes ikigai is what makes life worth living, but it’s not just about finding any random meaning. Instead, ikigai involves living a life that's deeply aligned with your values.

A life that you can live out your values

Nick: So with all the insights and all the reading you did, Nathania, how would you define ikigai? Or how did you define ikigai in the paper?

Nathania: I think the paper provides a systematic comparison, so I try my best to kind of like stick to the original idea as close as I could possibly get with all of the things that have been published or like people that has defined how ikigai is, so to say.

But I think if taking it also into context with behavioral activation, I do agree that ikigai is something that makes your life worth living, but I think like it can also how Jurgen and you obviously already touched on it, like be value-based.

So I think it is making life worth living, but it's not just randomly trying to make your life worth living, but also like living your life according to your values. I think I would take it one step further to say the life that’s worth living for is the life that you can live out your values.

Nick: Yes. Ken, in his book, one of the first questions is, what are your sentimental values? And I always thought sentimental was like a really interesting word choice, maybe suggesting the inner child, or this untainted self because he didn't say core values or most important values.

So there's this emotional connection, perhaps Ken's touching onto your values. So, yeah, I think that's really important. And I guess sometimes I reflect and think, wow, there are millions of people living their lives against their values, and it's no wonder they're frustrated and depressed.

And in this modern world with so much pressure and so much distraction, and almost it seems that there are little opportunity to express our values. It seems quite hard for us to feel ikigai, or for many of us. So it's interesting how ikigai and behavioral activation have this foundation on values.

How Ikigai and Behavioral Activation Align

Jürgen explores the similarities between Ikigai and Behavioral Activation, focusing on the importance of starting small. Both approaches emphasize beginning with small, achievable steps, which lead to success, increased motivation, and steady progress. Learn how taking these small actions can help you find purpose and improve your well-being over time.

Starting small sets you up for success

Nick: I guess now we could touch on perhaps some of the similarities you uncovered between behavioral activation and ikigai, and maybe even some of the differences might help. So who would like to touch on that?

Jürgen: It's really striking the idea with the small steps, and the idea of starting small. This is so central to behavioral therapy. It's the basic idea of behavior therapy since decades, and that comes out of this experience, because the logic is quite clear—if you start small, you will start successfully. You will start with a success. If you start large, you take the risk of failing, and it will not motivate you.

So the experience that something works and you can do it, that's really motivating, and that's even increasing motivation, and then you can start doing it better next time, or larger or whatever. But that's the way you get things, or brings things motivationally into life. And so that seems to be a basic principle.

And in my experience as a therapist, I've always been using this, and it's paradoxically, I mean, I remember having treated a manager from a German company, and his goal was to become the CEO of that company.

I guess the company is so large it's maybe even well known abroad. But then I told him the logic of starting small because he was depressed severely after having had to undergo brain tumor surgery, and it was not realistic to still come what he wanted before. And so I told him the logic of taking on small steps, and I was afraid that he would be like disappointed.

So the expectation to therapists is that they're more wise than you are, they have the overall sensational solution, maybe. And I'm a professor, so I told him, well, I don't have any sensational solution at all. I have the most mundane solution, which is, start small, start with small steps.

And, well, we had a sensational success in that kind of therapy. He stopped his career, actually. In other words, he found his ikigai. He moved completely out of office, changed the office, and began a different thing. I asked him, ‘What are the things that you really would like to do, given that you cannot become the CEO?’ And he said, ‘Well, actually, I really love hunting, being out, being out in the woods.’ He did, among other things.

And well, that's, I guess, is a similarity. And I guess that's something that is global wisdom. If you want to restart your life, you cannot start large. In rehabilitation treatment, I mean, you had a broken leg. And yeah, you start small, taking the first step again, it's a great experience.

It signals you're on the right track. And, I mean, that's something that people are checking constantly. That's how self regulation works: we're always checking, are we on the right track? And if you take on small steps, this checking process is easier, and the feedback from the checking process will more often be ‘Yes, you are. You can do that. You're not failing. Go on. How does that feel? It feels good.’ So that's one similarity.

How Ikigai Can Be Your Antidote to Depression

Jürgen explains how ikigai can play a vital role in preventing depression by encouraging self-exploration and helping individuals discover their life’s purpose.

Ikigai as a valuable approach to viewing life

Nick: I guess, going back to what I was really interested in was it's obviously established that behavioral activation has continuously been demonstrated in psychotherapy to treat depression effectively across different cultures.

So my question is, probably to you, Jürgen, are you confident that the same can be said for ikigai? Could it be treated as a psychotherapy to treat depression in various cultures.

Jürgen: Actually, that's something that Nathania and I are touching now, because the next step for us seems to be, how can we promote prevention of depression, and ikigai is obviously nothing that has been developed as a treatment.

In my view, it's helpful and healthy strategy to look on life and my actions in life, it's just raising the right question, as I say. I would say it's not a thing that you can grasp, it's more a process of asking questions and checking out if you're on the right track in finding your ikigai of today, or of the year, or of your life.

And so that's something that people should have the privilege to adhere to. And I'm very optimistic that this could work in prevention. So my vision would be to teach the ikigai approach in German schools as a form of prevention against too much negative thinking, against too much black and white thinking, against too much doubt. And a form of teaching individuality, a form of like, confidently study with yourself.

And that's something that adolescents need a lot. That's my vision, what I’m optimistic about. I wouldn't say that it would add too much to behavioral activation, except in those cases, which we mentioned in the article. But as a form of health prevention for everybody, I see it really, really beneficial and very optimistic about it, and I'm really keen on learning more about it. I'm looking forward to my first trip to Japan. I want to see Japan in my life.

For the full podcast conversation go to: Exploring the Intersection of Behavioral Activation and Ikigai