A Woman with Demons: The Life of Kamiya Mieko

Karen F. Danielson, Ph.D., is a research consultant at Laurentian
University who specializes in leisure, textiles, family life, and Japan.

Kamiya (personal name Meiko) was a remarkable Japanese woman who grew up
in an international environment prior to World War II. She became famous
for her 1966 book about what makes life worth living. Although little
known outside her country, she lived and studied in both Europe and the
United States. As well, she was a non-church Christian and one of the
first female psychiatrists in Japan.

Access to private handwritten documents enabled Yuzo Ota to describe
many of the struggles in Kamiya’s life, including the impact of the
illness and death of a man she loved. Ota describes her subsequent
choice to be celibate, her love of writing, and her professional life in
a world of men. During her life, she suffered from tuberculosis,
depression, and cancer. She lived through the war years, rediscovered
her Japanese traditions, and eventually married and had a family.

Ota includes many quotations from Kamiya’s diaries and other writings
in the book to chronicle Kamiya’s private thoughts as she reacted to
significant experiences. Her thoughts about religion, detachment from
reality, simple beauty, action without purpose, and deviation from
collective concepts are among those revealed. In the concluding section,
Ota also writes about Kamiya’s approach to life in her later years,
when she was a wife, mother, professor, and author.

The book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in women’s
issues, work–life balance, religion, mental health, and the challenges
of culture change. The questions Kamiya attempted to answer remain
universally important, while her integrity and persistence provide a
model that could be valuable to anyone. In reflection on her life story,
Ota concludes that Kamiya ended her life happily.