The purpose of this study is to elucidate the ambivalence that women experience in the decision making process concerning an induced abortion, their decision making state and the relationship with the depression experienced before and after the procedure. The subjects of the survey were 63 women over the age of 20 years who wished to undergo an induced abortion during the early stage of pregnancy. Before the surgery and at the follow-up examination, they were asked the questions shown on the balance sheet designed by the authors and fill out the questionnaire based on the Beck Depression Inventory. Subsequently it was found that these women were in an ambivalent state-a state in which they felt unable to continue pregnancy (pro-termination) and a desire to continue pregnancy (pro-continuation) -and when this ambivalence was exaggerated, they found it difficult to come to a decision. When the main force in decision making originated from someone other than the women themselves, indecision was further exaggerated: such decision making would become difficult and require more time before reaching a final decision. However, the certainty of the decision was not different from the case when the main decision makers were the women themselves. Those women who were ambivalent were much depressed before surgery and the depressive state failed to improve after the procedure. These findings indicated that it is necessary to support their decision and extend psychological care to those who require continuous assistance during their psychological maladaptation both before and after termination.

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Method: Family relationships were analysed using the Sentences Completion Test (SCT) for patients with eating disorder (45 cases with anorexia nervosa, 28 cases with bulimia nervosa). They completed the test before treatment and three items in the test, "My father…", "My mother…",and "My family…me…" were selected for analysis. I investigated whether family relationships were different among the types of eating disorder and whether they were related with the prolongation of clinical course in AN or BN. Results: 1) In AN group, significantly more patients evaluated theirs father affirmatively such as "My father is gentle" than in BN group (P<0.05). 2) In BN group, significantly more patients evaluated their mother negatively than in the AN group (p<0.05). About the question "My family helps me in…" significantly more patients replied "my family helps me in…" in AN group than in BN group, and significantly more patients with BN received negative evaluations from their families than those in AN (p<0.05). Discussion and conclusion: Intrafamily relationships were different among the types of eating disorder and were more affected by changes in family systems and culture in the BN group, they deeply involved prolongation of the disease. The view-point of intrafamily relationships must be strongly emphasized in the treatment of eating disorder.

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This study aimed to examine the effects of gender differences on working memory by examining changes over time during task execution. The subjects were 12 female and 12 male students. Computer-based tasks formulated by the authors, using the working memory that actively retains information as the index, were used for experiments of 60 minutes on three groups: females during the follicular phase, females during the luteal phase, and males. The results showed that performance of working memory tasks was significantly higher in the luteal phase, when sex hormones are secreted at high density, compared with the male students. Furthermore, for task execution, the results indicated that mental workload was lower for males than for females in either phase, in terms of subjective evaluation. However, physiological evaluation showed that mental strain tended to be higher before task execution. During task execution, cardiac sympathetic nerve activity was in an ascendant state for all subjects.

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This study aimed to clarify the impact of reusable cloth menstrual pads on the unidentified complaints of female students. We requested 32 nonuser, female students to use cloth menstrual pads for six months between January and July 2007, and investigated every other month with the use of a scale the changes in their unidentified complaints, image of menstruation, self-esteem, and acceptance of sexuality. And we requested them record every menstruation, and interviewed after the intervention. The analysis method used the multiple regression analysis and the t-test. Our survey found improvement in following items; perception of menstruation after two months, reducing of menstrual pain after four months, and improvement of unidentified complaints, self-esteem, and acceptance of sexuality after six months. Detailed analysis of their perceptional changes on menstruation and the interview results discovered that the touch feeling and texture of the cloth pads and the observation of menstrual blood at washing helped to change their perception of menstruation from "bothersome" into "natural", which led to improvement of unidentified complaints. Moreover, our survey found women whom the cloth pads acted on effectively were stronger experience perimenstrual pain, negative emotions, and behavior changes.

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