The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to advocate mental health services that are based on the educational model and (2) to introduce Relationship Enhancement Marital/Family Therapy (RE) as an example of one of the therapeutic approaches that is based on the educational model. First, the author makes a comparison of helping behaviors in the mental health field that are based on the traditional medical model to those based on the educational model. Second, the concept of empowerment, which can be shown to be related to the rationale of the educational model, is discussed in the context of the therapist-client relationship. Then, the author illustrates RE, which is a psychoeducational program for marital couples and families that is based on the skills training approach. The main strengths of RE are (1) that it is theoretically integrated; (2) that its effectiveness has been empirically supported; and (3) that it is applicable to various interpersonal problems, especially marital/familial problems. The paper provides a brief overview of: the rationale and the integrated theoretical framework underlying RE; the skills which clients learn; the therapists’ techniques in RE therapy sessions; and empirical studies that have demonstrated the effectiveness of RE. Last, caveats are offered and the applicability of the educational model and RE to a Japanese population is discussed.

　　This study aimed to investigate on the relations between the differences of interpretation concerning gender-related behaviors in social and family situations and the cognitions of the past experiences. Based on their types of interpretation, subjects have been divided into the following 2 groups: gender-related interpretation (GRI) and gender-unrelated interpretation (GUI).

　　For this study, following 2 hypotheses were set up:

　　(1) The GRI subjects will report more strongly when they heard traditional gender-related statements, and thus would try to obtain more information about gender roles than the GUI subjects would,

　　(2) The GRI subjects will have developed in family situations which have more flexible household sharing of duties than family situations where GUI subjects will have been brought up.

　　The sample consisted of 95 junior college students. A questionnaire developed by the researcher was administered to all. the subjects. It included measures of interpretation of particular gender-related behavior, reactions to traditional gender roles, activities they did after hearing statements of traditional gender roles, and household sharing of duties in their own family.

　　The results were as follows:

　　1. The variable of obtaining information about gender roles. Regardless of subject’s sex, the subjects who identified as GRI by the items which dealt with the roles of their own gender, felt more uncomfortable to hear the statements about traditional gendered behavior and tried to obtain more information about the gender roles than the GRI subjects. On the contrary, the subjects who identified as GRI by the items which dealt with the roles of different gender, they never felt uncomfortable and never tried to obtain informations.

　　2. The variable on household sharing of duties. Similar to result 1, regardless of subject’s sex, the subjects who identified as GRI by the items which dealt with the roles of their own gender, experienced more flexible household family situations than the GUI subjects. On the contrary, the subjects who identified as GRI by the items which dealt with the roles of different gender, they never experienced it.

　　The hypothesis were supported not in all aspects as written above. The results implicates that the needs to consider about the alternative variables to understand this matter.

　　In this paper, I have proved the assumption that a standard of judgment a therapist based on systems approach choose particular technique might parallel “diagnosis of the patient” or “the average number of participants”. The data are based on the records of 136 cases of family therapy. The result proved partly the assumption above. In concrete, a therapist made a choice of Symbolic Experiential Family Therapy toward “Borderline Personality Disorder” regardless of numbers of participants, Brief Therapy toward “Personality Disorder”, “Depression”, and “serious Neurosis” in a few participants, Structural Family Therapy and The Milan Systemic Approach to Family Therapy toward “serious Neurosis” and “Eating Disorder” in participants of all or most members of family, and Structural Family Therapy toward “Domestic Violence” and “Adjustment Disorder”.

　　However, those following factors except "diagnosis of the patient" and "the average number of participants" should be considered to figure out clearer indicators of therapist's choices of the particular technique;

1) whether or not participation of client, 2) particular interaction of family, 3) the degree of motivation of family for change, and 4) the way of formation of the therapeutic system.

　　The purpose of this paper is how birth order and child cognition of sibling comparison effect on self-actualization.

　　Over the past few decades a considerable number of studies have been made on the relationship between birth order and personality difference.

　　But only few attempts have so far been made on the relationship between birth order and self-actualization.

　　Thus, our concerned is to consider the relationship between self-actualization and sibling comparison experience, which is how the child recognized the parents’ comparison based on birth order.

　　We assume that the sibling comparison experience makes one’s sibling role more concious and it leads to the difference of degree of self-actualization.

　　Another assumption is that sex difference influences on the degree of self-actualization.

　　The following results were obtained: experience of comparison influences positively on the first-born girl and negatively on nonfirst-born girl and on boy in general. That is to say, in sibling comparison, the first-born child feels the comparison experience more advantageous and more positively than nonfirst-born child does.

　　In sex comparison, the comparison experience increases the degree of self-acceptance and independence especially for first-born girl.

　　On the other hand, overcomparison decreases the degree of self-acceptance and independence for first-born boy.