A pet has a played significant role as a member of the owner's family in recent years. It is known that the loss of a loved pet could bring its owner severe grief. However, this reaction has not gained enough attention. The description about grief reaction and care was reviewed in accordance with past literatures. Loss of a pet is one of the object losses. The pet owners suffer grief at the loss of the pet. It is just as traumatic as the relatives who died. They could experience various negative feelings and sorely somaticize in the process. When they reached to pathologic grief, some kinds of expert interventions were useful in treating these symptoms. In cases of pet loss, care providers should pay enough attention to treatment because of some features different from human death. First, in veterinary practice, owners have choice to euthanize their pets. It sometimes results in a pang of guilt, while humane euthanasia puts pet away calmly. Secondly, when perceptions about pet loss are different between owner and people, this gap makes owners feel isolated. Other's unintentional words, for example "just a dog" or "you can get another pet", would result in disappointment if the lost pet was considered precious. Furthermore, a funeral ceremony that is helpful for mourning work is much less common in a dead pet. These specificities of pet loss are worthy of attention. In Japan, such a controversial pet loss has been known during the last decade. Japanese bereaved owners also seem to go through grief process as in some other countries. However, a recent report showed that some of them felt different about foreign treatments. Although several textbooks of pet loss were translated and consulted, such past recommendations could not be appropriated in Japanese. It might be because of difference between Japanese and foreign cultures. Therefore, it need to be discussed how we should support bereaved pet owners on the basis of Japanese culture. As most of candidates in the past researches were recruited via a veterinarian, counselor or bulletin board, accessible populations might be biased. In addition, participants in the past survey generally think back and answer to questions in retrospect. These selection or recall biases could lead misinterpretation of findings. For the purpose of an appropriate support, the best-unbiased research for evaluating grief derived from pet loss is required. And then a prospective longitudinal survey is also needed in order to evaluate the result of interventions.

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Objectives: Recent study suggested that cognitive behavior therapy is effective for dental phobia. However, although effective in many patients with dental phobia, 25% of the patients with dental phobia did not respond to the cognitive behavior therapy. Consequently, the evidence about cognitive behavior therapy for dental phobia is insufficient. The purpose of this meta-analytic study was to clarify the effects of cognitive behavior therapy for dental phobia. Methods: Studies were identified from PsycINFO and Medline database combined with the key words "dental phobia", "dental anxiety", "dental fear" and "randomized controlled trial", and were included if these studies met the following criteria: (1) randomized controlled trial was conducted, (2) the effects of cognitive behavior therapy for dental phobia were examined, (3) comparison between treatment group and placebo control group or no treatment control group were conducted, (4) means and standard deviations about outcome measures for dental phobia were described and (5) published in English. Results: Results of meta-analysis revealed that cognitive behavior therapy was more effective than placebo control or no treatment control at post-session (d=2.18). The fail-safe index was 642.82, and the file-drawer index was 50. These results indicate that participants who received cognitive behavior therapy for dental phobia showed significant improvement at post-session. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that cognitive behavior therapy was an effective treatment strategy to improve dental phobia. Previous meta-analytic studies on the effects of cognitive behavior therapy for dental phobia included the studies in which the randomized controlled trial was not conducted. The results of this study had been shown that it was beneficial to select the psychosocial interventions for dental phobia. Future research should attempt to clarify the each effect of behavioral approaches and cognitive approaches, and also conduct the randomized controlled trial to clarify the cognitive behavior therapy for dental phobia in the Japanese clinical setting.

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Objective: Few studies have been reported on the characteristics of Japanese siblings with eating disorders. We investigated the similarities of the lifetime diagnoses, compensation behaviors such as binge eating and purging, obesity, and clinical and demographic characteristics of siblings with eating disorders. Method: Participant data were collected from institutions that participated in a study by the Japanese Genetic Research Group for Eating Disorders, all of whom had been diagnosed as having Anorexia Nervosa-restricting type (AN-R), Anorexia Nervosa-binging/purging type (AN-BP), Bulimia Nervosa-non purging type (BN-NP), Bulimia Nervosa-purging type (BN-P), Binge-Eating Disorders (BED), or Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV). AN-BP without binge eating was further sub-classified into AN-purging type (AN-P), and partially diagnosed AN and BN were classified into sub-clinical AN and sub-clinical BN. The subjects were 36 siblings with eating disorders (18 pairs, all females). The items surveyed included lifetime diagnosis, clinical information, and demographic data: 'Present age', 'age at onset', 'age at investigation', 'duration of illness', 'current BMI', 'maximum and minimum BMI in the past', 'duration before onset of binge eating or purging', 'history of the low body weight period (±17.5kg/m^2)' and 'diagnostic crossover'. Statistical analysis was done by x^2 analysis. Results: The lifetime diagnoses were AN (n=15,41.7%), BN (n=10,27.8%), AN & BN (n=10,27.8%), and EDNOS (n=1,2.8%). Ten of the 18 pairs had the same diagnosis (AN/AN, n=4, BN/BN, n=4, AN & BN/AN & BN, n=2). Irrespective of whether the diagnosis was lifetime or temporary, there was a tendency (p=0.001) toward having a similar history of the duration of the low body weight period (≦17.5kg/m^2). However, there was no similarity regarding complications such as binge-eating and self-reduced purging behavior. Conclusions: Although this study is preliminary, a possible association between siblings with eating disorders was found as to whether or not they were able to maintain the minimum normal body weight during their illness. Regardless of the presence or absence of binge eating or self-induced purging or a lifetime or temporary diagnosis, a similarity in body weight predisposition affects siblings with eating disorders.

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