After the 1960's, many adolescents who were mainly the junior high shool or high shool graduates flowed into the Tokai area from Kyushu. The most part of them were persons in collective employments and have been living in Tokai area. Now they are 30's or 40's and bring up children. Some sociologist and psychologist suggest that some of them worry about home life, child care and child education. Then we have had many interviews for the labors or house wives coming from Kyushu. It is suggested that the achivement of developmental tasks in adolescence affects the adult life. The purpose of this study is to analyse each case record in full detail and to clarify the crisis of personality development and the process of overcoming it in adolescence. Five cases (3 men and 2 women, from 20's to 50's) are analysed from the stand point of (1) the acquisition of life skill. (2) the decisive encounter in adolescence, (3) general intellectual ability, (4) total maturity of personality, and (5) the social network of personal relation. Be based on the case study, it is discussed the relation of the personality development in the adolescence and the preceding 5 hyposeses. Finally the originality and methodology of this study (for example, personal interview) is examined in comparision with psycho-clinical approach.

View full abstract

This paper discusses the developmental critical period about 10 year olds in personality development. I analize two groups of my clients older than eight years : eleven cases of children with psychosomatic disease and ten cases of children with nonverbal learning desabilities. It is pointed out that the psychosomatic children showed difficulties in affective expression by language and lack of play experience in the developmental process and that the nonverbal LD children showed developmental disabilities of sensation such as of space and time. The formation of these symptoms are not only reated heavily to physiological-somatic bases but also the disabilities of synthetic development between cognition and affection. The intervention focusing on the dynamics of developmental crisis seems indispensable for these children.

View full abstract

Being interested in the development of adolescent self-image, I have studied it with co-workers for several years using such methods as Morris Rosenberg's self evaluation scale and Manford Kuhn's TST (Twenty Statements Test). Recently, in order to verify our tentative hypothesis derived from the previous results, I have altered the approach to SD technique devised by Charles E. Osgood and found that the possible determinants of our self images might be four factors-actibity, objectivity, emotional evaluation and insight. On this new hypothesis I have made a critical comparison of the group self images of students in a university, a higher nurses' school and a believers' assembly of a new religion. The following are considered as the symptoms of the so-called "crisis" of presonality development : (1) Brought into the sharp comptition of the highly organized industrial society, the adolescents today seem to bend their minds to the "having" orientation. (2) Because of the capitalistic rationalism which gives importance to the efficiency in dealing with material things in a broad sense rather than with human affairs, the adolescents are hardly provided with such social relations that can inspire themselves to the reciprocal mediation, that is, a necessary condition of personal independence. (3) As the level of self-others interaction among them goes down, their receptivity of others' experience becomes dull. The consequential decline in the "inner forum" within one's self yields an inanimation of the "me" (in the sense of G. H. Mead's terminology) whose function is to open the door for the "I" (the factor of activity of the self). (4) Furthermore, the lowering of activeness to engage oneself hinders the growth of time-axis in the self-image. (5) Accordingly, the potential of self-interaction, having failed in getting active, cannot but pen up the emotional factors and let them attach to the undifferentiated "me". (6) The adolescents today, especially when they are conservative in the political life, being disposed to this narcissistic sentiment, are reluctant to take risk wiht their own participation in the "common undertaking", and keep themselves away from it.

View full abstract

Letude des structures semantiques et de fonctionnement des activites semantiques est devenue un des domaines les plus importants dans la psychologie cognitive au cours des dix dernieres annees. Nous presentons brievement dans cet article les travaux les plus importants realises en France dans ces domaines. Les problemes de semantique psychologique ont ete exposes et analyses pour la premiere fois par J. F. Le Ny dans "Langage" No 40 en 1975. Le numero special du bulletin de psychologie "La Memoire Semantique" edite par S. Ehrlich et E, Tulving en 1976 nous fournit le bilan des questions concernant les structures semantiques. Par ailleures, un ouvrage de J. F. Le Ny portant sur la semantique psychologique a ete edite en 1979. Deux autres numeros speciaux du bulletin de psychologie ( "La comprehension du langage" edite par G. Oleron et M. Denis en 1978 et "Langage et comprehension" edite par J. F. Le Ny et W. Kintsch en 1982) constituent des bilans sur le fonctionnememt des activites semantiques, notamment la comprehension du langage.

View full abstract