The purpose of this study was to illustrate how marital relationship in middle to old period and the influence of marital relationship on psychological well-being changed in the period before and after the husband's mandatory retirement. In the study, 235 married couples in their 50's through 70's were asked the level of satisfaction with marital relationship, psychological wellbeing, physical health, and income. Results showed the following. First, both husbands and wives indicated that there was a quantitative increase in all parameters for a good marital relationship; the amount of husband and wife communication, joint activities, and the husband’s share of the housework except the frequency of sexual intercourse after the mandatory retirement. Second, these parameters except the frequency of sexual intercourse influenced the level of marital satisfaction both before and after the retirement. Third, although these parameters had a strong influence on the level of marital satisfaction, the satisfaction had no influence on the psychological well-being of husbands after the retirement. The marital relationship after the husband's mandatory retirement was discussed in term of gender.

　　The function of home visit support for school refusing and socially withdrawn people and their families was examined from the perspective of the tripartite mutual relationship among the identified patient, visitor, and parents, instead of the older model of a dyadic relationship between the patient and the visitor. Interviews were conducted with parents and the data were analyzed qualitatively. Results indicated that the problem solving ability of the family was at a deadlock before the visit. However, after the visit, parents noticed that the visit produced various positive changes. Furthermore, parents were able to utilize the visit effectively and came to deal with problems independently. Changes to the family system resulting from the support visit are identified and functions of support visit involving tripartite mutual relationships are discussed.

　　The purpose of this paper is to explore the psychological experience of the siblings who have mild developmental disabilities brothers or sisters.

　　To describe the experience of the siblings, I interviewed 11 siblings. Date ware collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using the grounded theory approach.

　　As a result, 5 categories were generated: ① recognize sibling different and don't know too much about their disabilities, ② get confused about distance with parents or sibling with mild developmental disabilities, ③ restrain negative feelings for sibling who have mild developmental disabilities, ④ cope with conflict by keeping distance from sibling with mild developmental disabilities, ⑤ having good feelings toward sibling with mild developmental disabilities.

　　Psychological process of siblings were found: 1)sibling were in conflict because of having negative feelings, and restraining it. And it is also found that they experienced the process alone, 2)siblings get confuse about how to get distance between parents, other no disabled sibling and sibling with mild developmental disabilities.

　　In addition, the experience of suppressing their feelings was reanalyzed in detail. As a result of reanalyzed, the mechanism that how they restrain their feelings were found: ① ease negative feelings by good feelings for siblings, ② restrain feelings by holding back for family.

　　Especially the positive side of restraining siblings' feeling has been explained. This could mean that the experience with the sibling without noticing their disability will make them to focus on their siblings' themselves, and ease their negativefeelings.

　In school counseling, it is necessary for school counselors to collaborate with family, teachers and various specialists. I think that systems theory and multi-directed partiality are useful as theoretical framework and fundamental attitude for collaboration in school.

　In this study, to discuss collaboration in school from the viewpoint of systems theory and multidirected partiality, I examined my clinical experience in school counseling. In this case, I supported a non attending junior high school student as a school counselor.

　I collaborated with the family, school and an adaptation assistance center applying multidirected partiality to support the family system, the school system and the support team system that consisted of the family, school and the adaptation assistance center.

　For example, I supported the family system by confronting with systemic problems and promoting a conversation in it. I supported the school system by consulting with teachers and maintenance of an educational guidance system in it. I supported the support team system by connecting team members and holding conferences.

　I discussed the details of multi-directed partiality, usefulness of multi-directed partiality and the hierarchy of collaboration.

　Lastly, I discussed the notes of collaboration in school.

　The purpose of this study is to show qualitative differences in the conflict management process between American husband-Japanese wife couples and Japanese husband-Japanese wife couples. In depth interviews and questionnaires were administered to ten wives of American husband-Japanese wife couples and ten wives of Japanese husband-Japanese wife couples. These informants had at least one child, living in the metropolitan area of Japan. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using “The Modified Grounded Theory Approach” (Kinoshita, 2003). This study found a difference in the conflict management process between these two groups. The American husband-Japanese wife couples had changed their conflict management strategies from non-verbalization to verbalization. This process was facilitated by an attitude of attentive listening present among American husbands. Their conflict management strategies ended with constructive discussions. The Japanese husband-Japanese wife couples changed from verbalization to non-verbalization. This process was of two different types: 1. Both the Japanesewife and the Japanese husband understood each other non-verbally, or 2. Because of the attitude of non-attentive listening of the Japanese-husband, the Japanese wife had given up verbalizing her opinion in order to avoid destructive arguments.

　The conflict management process of American husband-Japanese wife couples has a Low-Context Verbal Style and that of Japanese husband-Japanese wife couples has a High-Context Verbal Style (Hall, E.T. 1992 ; Ting-Toomey ＆ Chung, 2005).

　　Late stage elderly parents have to make a choice between “living with handicapped children and caring for them as long as possible” and “making children live in an out-of-home placement”. Moreover, they have to confront with what will happen to their children “after parents' death”. In Japan, parents often feel guilty when they decide to make their children live in residential institutes because of the negative images generally held by the Japanese people about these establishments.

　　The purpose of this paper is to find explanations to the research questions; “what are the experiences of the elderly parents before using residential institutes and after?” and to explore the ways in which they make decision about “making children live out-of-home”. 11 parents of children with mental retardation have participated. Data collection has been conducted through semistructured interview.

　　The process of making children be out-of-home consists of 3 stages: ＜1. the preparation phase of residential placement utilization＞, ＜2. the early phase of residential placement utilization＞, ＜3. the stable phase＞. This study claims 3 hypothesis perceptions. First, the promotional factors for the parents to consider of their children- living away from home consists not only of negative thoughts but also of positive ones such as “calling up image that children would spend a good time in residential placement”. Second, after starting utilization of residential placement, the parents’ involvement with their child is not a problem behavior but a factor for prompting stable phase. Third, for elderly parents, evaluating how they have cared and related to their children so far has both positive and negative effects. Positive evaluations can be a support for these parents, but negative ones may become a psychological difficulty for them. To support these families, information provision, attentive hearing, and positive reframing of parents’ actions toward their child is needed.

　The first objective of this study was to create a marital conflict scale to allow adolescents to answer questions about a marital conflict they witnessed. The second objective was to use the scale with adolescents who witnessed a conflict between their parents and examine the mediation process in which the conflict affected their psychological health. A survey was conducted with 171 first-year undergraduates who had witnessed a conflict between their parents. They were asked about the conflict, their self-esteem, and depression. Factor analysis of the responses identified 3 parent-related factors (intensity, continuity, and resolution of a conflict) and 2 child-related factors (fear, physical responses, and “ambiguous-boundary-type involvement”) In both male and female respondents, a mediation process was found in which the higher the perceived conflict intensity, the more they became involved in the conflict, and the “involvement” heightened their depression level. For the female respondents, “involvement” in a conflict lowered their selfesteem and intensified fear and physical responses. For the male respondents, a continued conflict directly lowered their self-esteem. The study therefore suggested that, in females, “involvement” in a marital conflict strongly affected their psychological health, and in males, continuity of a marital conflict directly affected their psychological health.