This paper describes process of educational support for hospitalized children at a hospital school. As little research attention has been paid to this educational field, the qualitative approach, effective in relatively unexplored research fields, was adopted here. The data obtained from three years of fieldwork, which consisted of participant observation, semi-structured interviews with teachers, and document analysis, were analyzed according to what is known as the "tsunagi" (that is, mediating or liaison) support framework (Taniguchi, 2004). The data suggest that the quality of educational support is strongly affected by a child's prospective hospitalization period, and that in the case of long-term hospitalization, the main trajectory of the "tsunagi" support system changes from that of "the child and the hospital school" to that of "the child and the local school" in the course of the hospitalization process. Compared with educational and other support systems at a different kind of hospital school (where most students have some kind of mental problem), the importance of the "tsunagi" system operating between a hospital school and a local school, and between the various other support systems, is also discussed.

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The subject of this paper, "Haru" desired to change gender from female to male. Using data obtained mainly through interviews with Haru, this paper examined how Haru, a person with GID, learned to live with GID and also relates his personal account of GID. This data was then analyzed from the self-narrative perspective. Haru chose to divide his narrative into two parts: pre coming-out and post coming-out. In addition, a "transition" story was identified in the dialogue process, linking the two parts of the story. Haru's self-narrative, pre coming-out, shifted back & forth in terms of his understanding of his sexuality. The transition story contained a self-narrative by which Haru explained that he had a disorder. He expressed his disorder as it related to several contexts: personal, social and medical. Post coming-out, Haru's self-narrative was divided into seven phases.

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This longitudinal study on a life-story examines the manner in which an individual with aphasia, from whom rich verbal data cannot be obtained, experiences the place where he resides. The author examined the individual's images in snapshots, together with data obtained from direct observation, interviews with the individual, and interviews with the people around him in order to understand his relationships at the vocational aid center where he had been attending for a decade. The analysis revealed the place had three interpretations― landscape, container, and net. The individual appears to understand the environment and himself and behaves according to the interpretation that he draws. Although studies on life-stories tend to rely solely on interview data, the method implemented in this case made extensive use of visual data, and therefore, it could stimulate to the future development of research methodology.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the differences between two groups of subjects in terms of their meaning of disability. One group comprised long-term subjects, 10 males who had sustained spinal cord injuries more than 15 years ago. The other comprised short-term subjects, 14 males who had sustained spinal cord injuries less than 7 years ago. The author conducted semi structured interview twice about their post injury life with each subject. As a result, there was a difference between the two groups. First, the meaning was complicated with regard to various aspects. Second, the long-term subjects were apt to tell their positive aspect of life in comparison with assumed non injury life. Third, the meaning of post injury life had changed for the long-term subjects. Fourth, the some short-term subjects told that the disabled and able-bodied did not differ from each other. Finally as they sustained injury for longer time, they discovered a new positive meaning, various aspects of one positive meaning, while they met with new disadvantage.

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For most people, bereavement is inevitable. It is one of the most stressful events in life, and is an experience of enormous loss. The primary purpose of this study was to clarify personality development following bereavement. Bereaved persons (N = 18) were investigated by means of a semi-structured interview. The data obtained on personality development were classified into six categories: "acquisition of new behavior," "thinking of death," "thinking of life (living)," "deep understanding of others," "understanding of human relations," and "extended selfsensation." The second purpose of the study was to reveal the differences in bereavement experiences and investigate related factors. The results revealed six Bereavement Recognition Types. These types were found to be related to the contents of personality development, the relationship between the deceased and the bereaved, and care giving.

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Recently, socialwork practice in Japan has encountered the introduction of assessment tools for the establishment of care-guidelines for individuals with disabilities. The purpose of the present research is to clarify the process of socialwork that uses assessment tools, which is considered to be the result of the individual's self-determination and informed consent. In addition, the present research identifies the current problems in areas of clinical socialwork that utilize such assessment tools. Analysis of interviews conducted on clinical psychologists and psychiatric social workers revealed the following. 1) The areas of socialwork that use assessment tools are grounded in the relationship that exists between users and professionals in the counseling setting. 2) Assessment tools are used in the asymmetrical relationship that exists between users and professionals. 3) The skills and methods of professionals can be used to arbitrarily manipulate the consensus building process regarding the use of assessment tools. The results of the present research demonstrate the importance of establishing a symmetrical negotiation system for users and professionals.

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When we refer to lucky events and unfortunate events, we often talk as if "luck" is a type of resource. Although "luck" is often expressed in such a way, the matter of why it is referred to this way has not been considered. Therefore, by analyzing the circumstances that luck is approached as a "luck resource" and its structure in story form, the interesting points to the story were analyzed. In Study 1, most thought of "luck" as a negative factor when it came to winning or losing a prize. In Study 2 and 4, free descriptions were collected and analyzed by both sides, positive (increase in luck) and negative (decrease in luck). As a result, although positive descriptions were less than the negative descriptions, but when asked for the reason of the positive description, it was found that it was because the result could not be predicted, and there for resulting in a happy ending. In conclusion, what makes the story of "luck resource" is that "luck is considered as a negative factor. In context, "luck" is considered valid for positive results, perspective for an uncertain effect may be changed. Furthermore, as invalid use of "luck" may impose selfresponsibility, there lies "justification of luck or tsuki" based on the retribution-view.

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One type of mutual aid association created by immigrants is the rotating credit association. A rotating credit association is a generalized exchange of resources, and multiple types of these associations have been reported around the world. In this study, we followed the history of the Japanese in Argentina, among whom rotating credit associations have been very active. In addition, we compared five cases for which field information was collected. Based on these results, we found that face-to-face relationships between members are a prerequisite for organizing rotating credit associations, and we examine how these relationships are developed. Furthermore, we explore various effects that rotating credit associations have achieved, depending on historical changes in the Japanese community. Finally, we propose directions for future study.

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The present article shares the assumption raised by Shimizu (2004, "The Structure of Play and an Ontological Interpretation) that ontological-interpretation is a methodology especially needed in qualitative psychology. The following critical comment and questions, therefore, are raised with the expectation that such a methodology continues to be followed: 1) In order to argue whether his introduction of "structure" was valid ontologically, Rombach's (1971) concept of structure is reexamined. 2) The meaning of "ontological-interpretation" in Shimizu's paper was thought to be unclear and even misunderstood on some points, which casts problems on the validity of "play" as inquired ontologically. Heidegger's (1927) notion of "existential-analysis-of-Dasein" is suggested as an alternative perspective from which to focus on the researcher's own understanding of play experiences, which is implied partially in Shimizu's paper. 3) "Phenomenological-description" as a concrete way of approaching play experiences is discussed. 4) Some problems and prospects that are expected when ontological-interpretation is adopted in psychology are argued.

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Given that active interactions between the interviewer and the interviewee constitute the narrative process of unstructured interviews, the techniques involved in making inquiries are especially important for understanding the production of generative narratives. I constructed three models for examining interview processes, focused on "forms of inquiry", "forms of retelling", and "approach-strategies to problems". The model constructions were based on observations in the field and techniques derived from qualitative psychology. The interview processes that take place in consultant and professional interviews were micro-analyzed. It was found that effective forms of inquiry included "turns, expansions, and changing the position of self and others", and that effective forms of retelling included "techniques for setting up variations and complements". The micro analyses of interview processes undertaken in this study will be useful for developing qualitative method reflexivity and for skill training in interviewers.

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This paper determined the typology of the self-narratives of two professional baseball players' stories of retirement, told five years after they had retired as active players. They had no careers to pursue at the time of their retirement. The findings were as follows: They said little about their time as professional baseball players; they both stated: "I didn't want to become a professional baseball player, but somehow I became one" and "When I look back, I think that every single thing that happened or every feeling that I had was for my own good." These findings suggest that the stories they told can be understood as an act in the goal of relieving their "residual role" (Ebaugh, 1988) as professional baseball players.

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The purpose of this study was to establish a qualitative understanding of the adjustment process to public high school in Japan of two Chinese students. An analysis of data from a three-year ethnographic study in Kanagawa Prefecture suggests that three key factors influence adjustment: social differences, interactions between students and teachers, and teacher organization. These three factors are interactive in influencing each student's adjustment. In practice, a positive interaction is defined as one that supports the student's growth and as one in which the student performs to the teacher's expectations; in addition, it is a situation in which the teacher instructs the student willingly, and the interaction contributes to the appropriate adjustment of the student. In contrast, negative interactions may be attributed to the actions of both student and teacher. The teacher may intervene in such cases by addressing the student's "social differences".

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Qualitative psychology and cultural psychology are new beginnings for the discipline of psychology. These new beginnings also require a new methodology to fit the open systemic nature of phenomena. The trajectory equifinality model (TEM) is a new methodology for depicting the diversity of the course of human life. The concept of equifinality originated in the general system model of von Bertalanffy, and it means that the same final state may be reached from different initial conditions and in different ways. It is a general property of open systems. In the minimal case, the dynamics of the open systems entail the notion of individual trajectories that may diverge (at bifurcation points) or converge (at equifinality points). Therefore, the TEM maps the individual histories of particular systems onto the wider general system of possible trajectories that arrive at the equifinality point. After reviewing the historical and philosophical background of the TEM, important concepts such as the equifinality point (EFP), trajectory, bifurcation point, irreversible time, polarized EFP, and obligatory passage point (OPP) are explained. Then, three studies applying this methodology are presented so that new researchers can understand and practice this new methodology. Finally, the implications and limitations of the TEM are discussed. It is noted that all psychological research necessarily needs to analyze processes of psychological kind (rather than time-free essences that psychologists posit to "exist", like "intelligence", "personality" etc.), and TEM is a first step towards providing a workable alternative to existing statistical orthodoxy.

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