The popularity of sports in our country is nearing a peak as the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in Tokyo in 2020. However, athletes who are the central characters in sports often have psychosomatic problems. Therefore, it is necessary to provide psychosomatic support to athletes. In Japan, Certified Mental Training Consultants in Sports, certified by the Japanese Society of Sport Psychology, are flourishing. It is expected that close and continuous collaboration will occur between psychosomatic medical experts and Certified Mental Training Consultants in Sports. Consequently, it is necessary to expand the foundations of clinical sport psychology in our country. The collaboration and cooperation between psychosomatic medicine and sports psychology is expected to continue long after the 2020 events.

Besides applying “rinsho-shinri gaku (existing clinical psychology)” to sports field, researchers based on “shinri-rinsho gaku” have continued their practice and research on psychological support for athletes as “Clinical Sport Psychology”. “Clinical Sport Psychology” was born as a cross-cutting academic discipline both for research and practice with unique features of Japanese. The “body” of athlete is closely related to his/her individual internal tasks at a deep psychological level. In sport counseling, athletes who bring their matters in athletic life as a chief complaint often begin to tell more about sport performance and body. Such shift in athletes’ narratives seems to be related to their maturity as an athlete or a holistic human.

Female athletes hold psychosomatic problems including female athlete triad. Both healthy athletes and athletes with disabilities feel that menstruation symptoms inhibit performance. Pharmacologic therapy is usually indicated for women with menstruation symptoms, but cognitive behavioral therapy may also be effective because athletes have resistance to medication intake. An increasing number of studies report improvements in the physical and affective symptoms of a broad range of conditions following mindfulness-based practices, and future research is expected.

The purpose of the present study was to comprehensively review intervention studies of competitive anxiety, examine the effectiveness of interventions, and gather information on mediator and moderator variables used in these intervention studies. Data sources included several electronic databases (PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, PubMed, SPORTDiscuss, CiNii, Japan Medical Abstracts Society, NDL-OPAC). Of the 4,661 studies reviewed for exclusion criteria, 15 were included in the final analysis. The meta-analysis revealed that interventions for competitive anxiety have the effect reducing of competitive anxiety. None of the studies, however, screened subjects for high competitive anxiety ; none of the studies examined the relationship between improvement of mediators assumed in the intervention mechanism and reduction of competitive anxiety. Consequently, we discuss the future need for a selection of appropriate intervention techniques, the careful assessment of factors underlying the competitive anxiety of athletes, and a viewpoint integrating various areas including sports psychology and clinical psychology and research methods including qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Neurodevelopmental Disorder in adult population is now drawing attention in Japan, and this tendency needs to be considered in the field of sports. In this study, university athletes answered the questionnaires about ADHD and concussion which were among the most frequently studied in eastern countries. As a result, firstly, 27.9% of participants showed above the cutoff of ADHD. Secondly, regression analysis revealed that ADHD positive, were positively correlated to a concussion experience (β=0.25, p<0.05). Coaches and psychologists need to have knowledge about ADHD from perspectives of prevention and curing concussion. Also, coaches and psychologists need to consider both sports and academic performance for university athletes to recover from concussion.

Background : The skin color is made up of two melanin pigments in the Japanese. One melanin is eumelanin (brown/black) and the other is pheomelanin (yellow/pink). Among them, antioxidants such as glutathione are required for the production of pheomelanin. People develop oxidative stress in the body when exposed to stress. Antioxidants decrease by reducing oxidative stress. The cause of the skin pigmentation is derived from the reduction of pheomelanin due to the reduction of antioxidants. That is, stress is one of the causes of pigmentation of the skin.

Objective : The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between depression and darkening of the skin during daily life.

Methods : We measured the melanin level and depression degree of skin of healthy student volunteers and examined the relationship between the two of them. SDS (self-rating depression scale) was used for depression measurement and Megzameter was used for melanin measurement of the medial upper arm skin.

Results : The depression score was 24 to 63 (average 40±8 points). We divided the depression score into the high group and the low group and compared the melanin levels. As a result, melanin level was significantly higher in the group with high depression score (p<0.001). On the contrary when the melanin level (average 113±35) was divided into the high group and the low group, the depression score was significantly higher in the high group (p<0.0001).

Conclusion : Depressions induce oxidative stress. Increased oxidative stress substances consume antioxidants. As a result, the production amount of pheomelanin decreases. We consider that skin pigmentation occurs as a result of higher eumelanin/pheomelanin ratio.

The adult patient who was abused in childhood have not only posttraumatic stress symptoms but also problems of interpersonal relationships as interpersonal distrust, detachment, aggressive emotions to others, etc. These problems would be re-enactment of traumatic interpersonal relationship of one’s child abuse. Because re-enactment of traumatic interpersonal relationship includes triggers for posttraumatic stress symptoms, it is important to alter that traumatic interpersonal relationship and to make and maintain one’s positive relationship with others for alleviating the symptoms. In this paper, we report a psychotherapy case of an adult patient who was abused by father in her childhood. Patient had some posttraumatic stress symptoms as re-experiencing, dissociation, suicidal ideation. In addition, re-enactment of traumatic interpersonal relationship and negative beliefs of oneself and others were prominently. We led the patient to reflect on herself by the Socrates-style question method and sharing the case-formulation of patient’s interpersonal relationship then patient became capable to make and maintain her positive personal relationship. Concurrently patient’s posttraumatic stress symptoms were alleviated and negative belief about oneself and others were positively changed.