Therapists are almost anathema to Japan. They believe home problems should be resolved at home. When they see someone approaching a complete breakdown due to, what we in the west consider, a perfectly manageable mental illness that could be solved with prescription drugs that do not even have adverse effect, they just tell them "do your best" and "do not cause trouble for others". And then, the meltdown begins, then they act sad and ask "how this have happened" and whether or not there was something they could have done to prevent this. The answer is there is something (therapy) but it is nothing they would be willing to do. So instead of addressing their true problems, they will just ban ponytails or something instead so that it at least looks like they are doing something. Japan 's war against the practice of Psychotherapy is one only surpassed by Scientology 's. That has been well documented.