We developed a preliminary psychological scaling for the degree of contentment with family in the elderly. The purpose of this study is to discover the factors related to the degree of contentment with family using psychological scaling. Subjects consisted of 617 married men and 297 married women, whose ages ranged from 50 to 79 years of age. The following are the major findings.

(1) The older subjects had a higher degree of contentment with family than the younger subjects.

(2) Over all sex difference in the degree of contentment with family was not significant. However, as compared with women, men exhibited a higher degree of contentment in relationship with spouses and in the time they can freely use when the sex difference was compared based on the four factors constructing the scale.

(3) The degree of contentment with family shown by the people who lived with their children did not differ from that of those who did not live with their children.

(4) The subjects classified as group oriented had a higher degree of contentment with family than those subjects classified as individual-oriented.

　The purpose of this investigation is to examin the adaptation to widowhood/ widowerhood among the elderly whose spouses died three to 14 months prior to the present investigation. One hundred eighty four widowed with a mean age of 71.0 years old responded to the survey instruments-Zung’s self-rating depression scale, the UCLA loneliness scale, and the IPAT anxiety scale.

　The main findings were summarized as follows;

(1) Results from the present study were compared with those from the married of our previous study. The loneliness score of the widowers was significantly higher than that of the married, but no significant difference in the depression score was observed between the widowed and married groups. However, the elderly widowed displayed significantly lower anxiety than the married.

(2) The results were analyzed by the two way ANOVA [the time duration from their spouses’ death(3) X sex(2)] J. Significant group effect was shown in the anxiety scale but no group effect was seen in the depression and loneliness scale. As the duration from the spouses’ death become longer, the level of anxiety became lower.

(3) The results of multiple regression analyses indicated that the self-reported health status had significant influence upon depression, loneliness and anxiety scores. Work status showed significant influence upon depression and loneliness scores in the widowers. In the widows, significant age effect upon depression and anxiety scales was exhibited. Therefore, the bereavement apparently seems to be a negative experience but that negative experience may play an important role in furthering the personal growth of the widowed in the process of overcoming a spouse’s death.

　In the individual play therapy, a mother and her child are usually separated in a play room. In our case study, however, a collaborative mother-child play had good effects. At this play situation, a mother and her child play together in a play room, and a play therapist assists their play. The major problem of our case was poor contact between the mother and her child. And we aimed to change the mother’s behavior to her child through the collaborative mother-child play.

　We examined the therapeutic factors of this case and the reasons for the mother-child separation in the individual play therapy. And we conclude the collaborative mother-child play has therapeutic effects, if it is introduced when the following two conditions are fulfilled. First, neither the strong emotional disturbance nor the negative attitude exists between a mother and her child. Second, the child has trust in the adults or his parents.

　We propose a two-stage therapeutic model in this study. At the first stage of this model, the usual mother-child separative play therapy is used. Therapists confirm whether above two conditions are fulfilled. If the conditions are fulfilled, the collaborative mother-child play is introduced as the second stage of this model.

　In the study of a "acting-out" case, we found that the patient was trying to find "another self", which had not been represented by the word "myself".

　We suspected that this inconsistency between the "symbol" and the "situation implied by the symbol" was due to the compelled indirectness which had been prolonged in her family.

　In this case, her mother was not fond of her, and her father did not try to get a contact with his family. Her mother always tried to "control" her daughter according to her own social value system. But we suggested this tendency of her mother’s control over her daughter was due to her own loss of "self-evidence". Because we considered that the man who has failed to have "self-evidence" would like to try to get pseud-evidence by approaching to some apparent clear value-system (in Japan, "Sekentei" is often adopted as this.). In this approaching process, the man would often over-adapt some value system and becomes the aggressive performer of that value. In this case, her mother was an aggressive performer of her value, and the daughter was always differentiated from her own activity or directness by her mother.

　As the result, the patient’s "self" did not represent her own mind, and she tried to find "real self" by nonverbal activity.

　The overadaptation process to some value system which her mother showed seems like "festum". But we consider that is the "pseud-festum". The festum is the situation where the men would be able to meet the "another". And after the festum, the person would be able to "age" by meeting and getting another knowledge about himself or human-beings.

　The family from where the youth would like to depart by the aggressive manner, is suspected to be shut off from the society in an unusual manner and the youth could not have the chance to meet another.

The importance of the chance of meeting another (festum) in the family was discussed.

　We observed two families with very weak father function and studied about the essence of the father function through the families.

　The first is a case of an illegitimate girl. She communicated with her father by the only dinner once a month. Therefore her father lacked a function forming and restricting her. On beginning her adolescence she started to repeat antisocial actions. Her wrong doing means a conflict of socialization. It was to be done against her father originally, but in her case it was done directly against the society. If her mother had killed her real father symbolically, and had revived a father of restriction as a mental existence, her mother could have acted for a true father, and the unhappiness might not have happened.

　The second is also a case of a girl starting antisocial actions in her adolescence. Her family was perfect formally, but there was no affection between her parents. Therefore her father was indifferent to his children. Her rebellious action means also a conflict of socialization. But in her case it still more means calling her father back to the original position.

　From the results mentioned above, we can get the following conclusions.

(1) The father has a function forming and restricting children.

(2) The restriction to children means a battle against children but it is necessary for socializing them.

(3) In a family without the father function children must fight directly against the society. It is called children’s wrong doing.

(4) If father as a real person doesn't have the function, he must be killed symbolically. Then other people can act for vicarious father.

　We will, in this paper, comment the treatment of the influence of outer system of the family. A "Family Identified Patient" is the new conception produced from systemic family therapy background, as "Identified Patient" is not the same as formerly psychotherapy terminology, "Client". The family in need of treatment tends to talk about various. influence from outer system quite a lot.

　We will discuss the following three points, giving examples of our cases:

　1) how to treat the influence the family has illustrate literally.

　2) how to catch the genuine message out of the family message.

　3) how to treat the relativity between two points.

　The case was a 33-year-old woman. Her chief complain was a general fatigue and not vigorous. Her symptoms got well for a time by an individual therapy. But it came to the fore again. There was a vicious circle between her and her husband or her husband and her family of origin. I started a family therapy with the couples. I had reframed that she wished to care about her husband and to ascertain her husband’s tender feeling so that she complained a variety of symptoms. She showed an overadaptatin and acted a part of a victim.

　Treatment-modality for the victim. Push forward her actions in the extreme. Prescribe the so-called symptoms. Command her to exaggerate the action of IP. It is said to be therapeutically good that when you feel yourself powerless to IP you have yourself looked after like a child by neighbors, pretending powerlessness.

　I tried a paradoxical approach that I made her act in the face of her husband to overstate her symptoms. They had been aware of their present condition by my approach. Her symptoms disappeared after paradoxical approach.

　She has so far only put up with everything, but became to be able to speak in equal terms with her husband, so that her autonomic ataxis symptoms have been improved because of already absent occupation on her systemic symptoms.