Allergic diseases were recognized as typical psychosomatic disorders addressed as Holy Seven including bronchial asthma and atopic dermatitis. Psychological influence on these allergic diseases was well known, however, psychosomatic perspective on them has been receded according to the development of modern medicine which has improved therapeutic outcomes and has elucidated that most of the other diseases are also involved in psychosomatic mechanisms of disease onset and/or exacerbation. Nevertheless, severe intractable allergic disorders can not be overcome without psychosomatic approaches even now. These severe disorders has become intractable because of their respondent conditioning with anxiety and operant conditioning with some reinforcers. Therefore, based on the reciprocal inhibition of conditioned response by relaxation training, desensitization with exposure therapy and applied behavior analysis approaches are effective to erase their conditionings. Recent birth cohort studies revealed that maternal anxiety and depression are risk factors of onset of their offspring’s allergic disorders after birth. Trans-generation approach with psychosomatic perspective should be needed to eradicate allergic diseases in the future.

Dentists are confronting chronic oral pain such as burning mouth syndrome or atypical odontalgia. Most of them can be occurred after dental practices, patients and families easily have sense of being injured. Dentists have tendencies to regard them as “psychogenic” pain for their self-justification. Under these situations, it becomes difficult to introduce such painful patients to appropriate psychosomatic approaches. The concept of “neuropathic pain” was convenient to make dentists to use antidepressants, however, they did not show enough effects without treating the patients’ mind. In this paper, the possibility of ideal psychosomatic medicine for chronic pain in dentistry was discussed sharing the common clinical problems among other surgical specialists.

Human mind is body and human body is mind. Our mind and body are inextricably linked together. They influence each other in the development of diseases. Kampo medicine is based on the principle of “mind-body unity.” In Japan, based on the idea of harmonization of Eastern and Western medicine, Kampo medicine plays an active role as curative medicine in current medical treatment. The theory of gozou-roppu (five solid organs and six hollow organs), which is a part of the Kampo theory, includes components of spirituality : liver-ethereal soul, lung-corporeal soul, spleen-intention/thought, kidney-will, and heart-spirit. Traditionally, the structure of Kampo medicine is multifaceted ; that is, the relationship between mind and body, social activity, and human relations, as well as the spiritual aspects of patients, are included. The bio-psycho-socio-eco-ethical medical model, which is proposed in the field of psychosomatic medicine, has been traditionally used in Kampo medicine.

Kampo medicine approaches to treating both mind and body. Similarly, psychosomatic medicine treats the body while being aware of the mind. Practicing a hybrid of Kampo medicine and psychosomatic medicine is considered to be of value in the health management of women.

The population of the older adults is drastically increasing in the developed countries including Japan. The group of super elderly people, older than 85, is expected to be the highest growing age segment in next decades. Few studies focus on the psychosocial aspect of the oldest old and centenarians. Previous studies, however, suggested that oldest-olds and centenarians tend to maintain well-being even if their physical and cognitive functions decline. The SONIC study is an inter-disciplinal and epidemiological survey that intends to investigate whether this interesting phenomena called aging paradox would continue to the final phase of life.

We could have replicated a finding that mental health is maintained regardless of physical decline in cross sectional comparison. Our data suggested a concept of gerotranscendence is involved in this phenomena. Further longitudinal data collection is needed to confirm the higher mental health in oldest old people is caused by an aging related change rather than derived from the cohort environmental difference such as an economical condition.

Patients with chronic intractable pain tend to have similar psychosomatic characteristics. They have several problems on attachment and distrust in relation to parenting in their childhood and unique cognitive-emotional-behavioral patterns. They have specific rigid stress responses. We have experienced a lot of graded psychosomatic treatment for those patients in the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, in Kyushu University Hospital. We have introduced the concept of the third wave cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs) such as mindfulness stress reduction and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). However, the pretreatment of autogenic training, art therapies like drawing and sand therapy, and approach to their family before the third wave CBTs often enhance the usefulness. Here we report the useful graded psychosomatic treatment for chronic intractable pain.

Tension-type headache (TTH) is a type of chronic headache suffering from daily disabilities and the most prevent headache. TTH is also typical psychosomatic disease related with psycho-social factors, and so psychosomatic medicine is essential for decreasing daily disabilities of TTH patients. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most effective of some approaches in psychosomatic medicine. We developed and conducted on trial cognitive behavioral program based on the fear-avoidance model, which is psychological one for explaining the pain sustainment mechanism. As a result, the score of the pain catastrophizing and avoidance behavior decreased after program compared with before program. Then, daily disabilities of TTH patients improved. These positive change stayed follow-up (3 month later) as well.

In this article, I report following contents : sustainment mechanism based on cognitive behavioral theory for TTH, original CBT program intended to improve daily disabilities with TTH patients, and some tips and challenges in this program.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is valid as non-drug therapy for migraine. Although biofeedback therapy and relaxation method have abundant evidence, only few facilities carry out these treatments. We believe that cognitive behavioral therapy can be more effective by grasping cognitive distortion of migraine, and we are conducting a clinical research. Migraine group showed a significantly higher somatosensory amplification than the healthy participant group. In the migraine group, somatosensory amplification affects the trouble of daily living caused by headache via pain catastrophizing. We believe that more effective CBT can be developed by evaluating the cognitive distortion in migraine from multiple perspectives.

Objectives : We aimed to examine the influence of parent-child relationship on self-injurious behavior tendency. Specifically, we examined whether self-injured people are receiving invalidation from their parents and whether parent-child relationships other than invalidation influence self-injury tendency. Further, we investigated how the father/mother influences children, and how the differences appear between high- and low-self-injury tendencies in the developmental stages of parents and children as they graduate from high school and enter college.

Method : We used the self-injurious behavior scale (Doi, Miyake and Sonoda, 2013) and parent-child relationship scale (Ochiai and Sato, 1996). A questionnaire survey was conducted on 426 high school students and 262 college students.

Results : The results confirmed that invalidation from parents to children existed. While mothers tried to protect their children from danger, there was a contradictory way of involvement such as not providing enough support. It was shown that this involvement had a major influence on self-injurious behavior. Further, it was seen that parent-child relationships of self-injurers did not reach the psychological weaning development stage.

Conclusion : Therefore, in the future, it is necessary to examine invalidation from parents to children and the cause of the contradictory involvement of mothers in their children.

Objective : This study aimed to conceptualize Fear of Cancer Recurrence by using a cognitive behavioral model based on the previous research. We assumed Fear of Cancer Recurrence is consisted of emotional and cognitive aspects, and conducted a systematic review of Fear of Cancer Recurrence scales to classify them into the two aspects.

Methods : We used PubMed, psycINFO, and CINAHL database and found 1,064 articles. Of 205 articles we conducted the systematic review, 12 scales were finally included in this study.

Results : “Being worried” was more common than “fear” as a concept of the emotional aspect. On the other hand, “worry about recurrence” and “worry about life after recurrence” were most common, and “risk perception” and “worry interfering one’s life” were minor concepts as the cognitive aspects.

Conclusion : Fear of Cancer Recurrence can be defined as “worry about the risk of cancer could return or progress in the same place or in another part of the body and about life after it happens.” We need to discuss further to reach to the agreement in its definition for further studies.