Recently the number of one-parent families, mainly due to the divorce of the parents, has been increasing, and the welfare aids towards such families are much demanded. The assisting measures for motherless families are much behind those for fatherless families, and how to cope with the problems of motherless families should be a primary task for us to tackle.

　In this connection a research by questionnaire method was made to survey the actual conditions of motherless families in Akita Prefecture, 1,790 in all, and, based on the 1,461 answers to the questionnaires, we obtained the following data in main:

　1. Distinctive differences between the rural and the urban areas: (1) Mother­less families in the rural area can get help from others more easily than those in the urban area in terms of housework, care of children, and economic problems. (2) Most of the fathers in motherless families in the urban area are uneasy about his living and are under heavier burdens than those in the rural area.

　2. Distinctive differences of the father’s problems by the way he has separated from his wife: (1) The fathers who divorced or parted from their wife for some reason or other are mainly worried about his housing or his job. (2) The father who lost their wife by death are anxious about housework or their own private troubles. (3) Consequently, the formers need economic help, and the latters need help concerning housework or bringing up the children.

　3. Distinctive features between extended and nuclear families: (1) Fathers in extended families can reduce their economic, mental or physical burdens to some extent by the help from others. (2) On the contrary, fathers in nuclear families have many problems about economic stability, housework and bringing up their children and so on, and welfare aids are much needed.

　From the above data we can affirm that in the urban area motherless families caused by the divorce of the wife have many problems, and when the families are nuclear ones, the problems are the more serious. And so, the welfare aids towards those motherless families to reduce the burdens of housework and of bringing up the children are highly necessary.

　We should recognize the importance of coping with the problems of motherless family by means of welfare aids both from the administrative side and from the personal side―help from the relatives, friends, neighbors and colleagues. Much of our efforts should be done in this direction.

　This paper investigated some of the major hypotheses of David Olson’s Circumplex Model of marital and family systems. The sample was ten Japanese clinical families who received systems-oriented family therapy at Yodoyabashi Psychotherapy Center in downtown Osaka. The family members' interactions were directly observed before and after treatment. The Clinical Rating Scale (Olson and Killorin, 1985) was used as an instrument to assess major dimensions of the Circumplex model, namely adaptability, cohesion and communication.

　The results of this study indicated as follows. First, two independent judges achieved very high interrater correlation (r=0.94 on average). This suggests that adaptability, cohesion and communication dimensions are clearly operationalized and highly communicative to even those judges who reside outside of the North American cultural context.

　Second, all adaptability variables, three out of four cohesion variables and six out of nine communication variables showed high item-total and inter-item correlations. However, three communication variables (freedom of experience, speaking for self and for others) were found uncorrelated to the total communication score. Thus their membership to the communication dimension was empirically questioned. Similarly, although the Circumplex model predicted a high Parent-Child coalition characteristic of an "enmeshed" family system, the coalition was found rather closely associated with a "disengaged" family system. Theoretical and clinical considerations were presented to support this empirical finding.

　Third, related to the discussion of parent-child coalition, it was found that sum of the understandings of parent-child or marital subsystems are not equal to that of total family system.

　Fourth, item-other total correlation analysis as well as factor analysis supported that the cohesion and adaptability dimensions were orthogonal (independent) of each other.

　Fifth, communication variables were found to be curvilinearly associated with adaptability and cohesion variables.

　Sixth, repeated-measurements of ten clinic couples before and after family therapy supported the hypothesis that the general health/ pathology of family systems is curvilinearly related to adaptability and cohesion dimensions.

　This paper reports the results of a preliminary experiment on the construct validity of the Circumplex model. This results were analyzed according to a Multitraits-Multimethods matrix. Two traits under examination are Adaptability and Cohesion. Two methods employed in this study are a paper and pencil test (Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale at Kwansei Gakuin of FACESKG) and a judge rating (Clinical Rating Scale or CRS). Ten clinic families responded to FACESKG. Their video-taped enactment interactions were observed and rated by independent judges using CRS.

　Convergent validation examines measures of the same trait assessed by different methods and is expected to be high. Cohesion demonstrated a moderate convergent validation (r=0.56) while adaptability showed a relatively poor result (r=0.19). Discriminant validation which is expected to be low, examines measures of different traits assessed by either the same or different methods. The results were also mixed. Very low to moderately low correlations were obtained from between-method comparisons of different traits; r=0.01 between CRS cohesion and FACESKG adaptability, and r=0.26 between CRS adaptability and FACESKG cohesion. However within-method comparisons of different traits were unexpectedly high; r=0.67 for a correlation of adaptability and cohesion within CRS, and r=0.45 for these traits within FACESKG.

　Inadequately low convergent validation for adaptability was discussed due to the difficulty of assessing this dimension whisin a family enactment situation. In order to induce both family adaptability and cohesion functions, this paper suggests more standardized, controlled and objective tasks such as the Simulated Family Activity Measurement (SIMFAM) for further study. Meanwhile, unexpectedly high correlation (i. e., poor discriminant varidation) of adaptability and cohesion measures within the same method, FACESKG or CRS, was attributed to a distorted sample distribution, the result of a small sample size. This paper suggests at least thirty or more families be involved in further experiments.

　Finally, it was argued that the current version of FACESKG mainly focusses on the concept of "boundary" for cohesion and that of "rule" and "role" for adaptability. Any other cohesiomn or adaptability variables are inadequately tapped by FACESKG. Further item construction for overlooked variables as well as item selection of overrepresented items were suggested for the next version of FACESKG.

　Using two questionnaires in the scale of Narcissistic Tendency (Hosoi, 1981) and concept of the maternal self (Hosoi, 1987) and interviewing, motherhood in the psychological process of pregnancy, delivery and confinement in family relationship were examined in 113 primiparae and 130 multiparae in hospital. In Study 1, it was found that primiparae have something on their body image and sick by pregnancy and delivery (p＜.05) and feel object loss in delivery (p＜.05) and multiparae feel uneasy repregnancy and never experience pain in delivery again (p＜.05), and women in abnormal process of delivery feel object loss after childbirth. In Study 2, the narcissistic tendencies toned by "self-love" and "sameness" found women depended on their mothers, and by "exhibition" found women on their friends.

　Generally it’s desirable to practice the session with full members of family. But there are many cases that full family members rarely come together to the therapy room, even the only one member of the family comes. Even in such cases, therapist should try to change the whole system of the family throughout approaching the sub-system of the family which he must be faced with.　In this paper, we report the case that our therapist-team approaches the inter-relationship between mother and other family members hidden from us. The feedback process in the family system which the therapist can observe is called "the first cybernetics", and the cybernetic feedback process between the therapist and the family system which the therapist team can observe is called "the second cybernetics". The member of the therapist team who stands on the position of this complex phase takes the role of "the observer of the observer". Therapist must stand on the meta-position to the family system. And therapist team must stand on the more meta-position to the system which both the therapist and the family system form. We consider that the approach based on the cybernetic feedback process offers a fruitfull viewpoint for effective practice of therapy.

　For the past decade, we have reported many studies on the Schematic Projective Techniques which have been designed by Mizushima. They are the simple dynamic projective techniques as a tool of psychometrics, psychodiagnosis and psychotherapy. In these techniques, simple materials such as card of key word, circle piece of paper or wire are used. These materials are arranged on a sheet of paper freely by a client in order to express his/her feeling. As for one of the techniques, circle pieces symbolize self and others, and wire symbolize the boundary of self or a group. Key words are printed on cards in Chinese letters, which, for example, represent some of key emotions (love, anger, and so on). Resently, we have constructed personal-computer version of our Schematic Projective Techniques. The present paper intends to suggest the application of personal-computer version of our techniques for assessment of family relationships.

　After reviewing the procedure of some techniques, relating to psychodiagnosis and psychotherapy, patterns of family relationships measured by one of the techniques were cluster-analized. It is suggested that computer version of Schematic Projective Techniques is useful for assessment of family relationship and for psychotherapy.