Creative Hopelessness (CH) refers to the phase in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in which motivation to control unpleasant private events decreases, and also the stance that clients acquire in this phase. Empirical evidence for creative hopelessness is extremely limited, due to a lack of appropriate methodology for discriminating its acquisition. In the present study, a new method for discriminating the acquisition of creative hopelessness was developed from the perspective of the correspondence between saying and doing. The effect of creative hopelessness was examined with this new methodology. Undergraduate students (N=17) with high social avoidance tendency received a Rationale (lecture and practice) about creative hopelessness. After the intervention, the correspondence group showed greater understanding of the Rationale compared to the other groups. Improvement in subjective disturbance in relation to social events and in mental health was found only for the participants in the correspondence group. This effect was not observed in the non-correspondence group, suggesting effectiveness of the acquisition of creative hopelessness.

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Currently, studies that aim to control negative mood by distraction-the process of diverting an individual's attention or interest-are ongoing. However, opinions vary as to their outcome. Moreover, in Japan, randomized controlled trials are only infrequently conducted as a method for evaluating the outcome of psychotherapy. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether any changes in negative rumination or depressive mood could be observed after outpatients at a psychiatric clinic had received cognitive behavioral therapy focused on distraction. Patients with major depressive disorder were randomly divided into a distraction group (n=20) that received cognitive behavioral therapy in which distraction was actively encouraged, and a control group (n=20) that received psychotherapy focused primarily on attentive listening (conventional treatment). A mixed two-factor analysis of variance on measures of negative rumination or depressive mood with time (pre- vs. post-treatment) and treatment (cognitive behavioral therapy vs. control) as within- and between-subject factors revealed a significant interaction between time and treatment, with the distraction group showing significant changes after cognitive behavioral therapy. The results suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy focused on distraction shifted the patients' attention from negative rumination and alleviated their depressive mood.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine the correlation between perceived illness experiences and psychosocial adaptation in adolescent childhood cancer survivors. The participants, 21 youth (7 boys, 14 girls; average age 15.8 years, SD 2.1) who were cancer patients attending pediatric outpatient clinics, were asked to participate in a semi-structured interview and complete the Pediatric Quality of Life (QOL) Inventory. The results indicated that psychosocial daily difficulties influenced their illness perception. Although the results were not statistically significant, positive perception might correlate positively with QOL, and negative perception or a despairing attitude might correlate negatively with QOL. Future research should investigate those influences in a quantitative study.

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The purpose of the present study was to develop a short version of the self-rating Social Skills Scale (SSS) by Koyama et al. (2002, in Japanese) for socially anxious individuals. The reliability and validity of the newly developed version was tested. The SSS-social anxiety scale had a single-factor structure and demonstrated high internal consistency (α=.89). Total scores were significantly negatively correlated with multiple measures of social anxiety, specifically with scales measuring avoidance behavior and fear of social interaction. Response to treatment was evaluated through changes in the scores of patients with social anxiety disorder who received group cognitive-behavioral treatment. The results showed an effect size of .45 at post-treatment, and .44 at a 6-month follow-up, indicating moderate treatment sensitivity of the present scale. Implications for future research were discussed.

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The present study describes cognitive behavior therapy for an elementary school student who for 5 years had been refusing to attend school without his mother. The causes of his school refusal seemed to be a lack of separation from his mother, attention from his mother, and avoidance of anxiety that seemed to be related to the teachers and his classmates at school. The therapy included shaping of separation from his mother, exposure to school-based stimuli, and social skills training. After the treatment, he attended school by himself every day, including after entering junior high school. The effectiveness of exposure and the necessity of combining methods are discussed.

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