ロールレタリングの発展過程と医療への応用

Role letter writing is a form of psychotherapy in which the client plays the roles of two persons, who exchange letters. The purpose of this psychotherapy is to help the client become aware of their problems in the process of reporting their feelings from the positions of the two roles by letters. This technique was created from education practices at reformatories in Japan. At present, role letter writing is also widely used in psychological clinics such as for school refusal, school violence, and domestic violence. Simultaneously the theory of role letter writing is being established, and methods of evaluating its effects are being developed. The application of role letter writing to medical practice has been also attempted. There have been reports on the use of role letter writing as a method of psychological supporting medical staff members themselves and as a method to help them to understand patients. In the future, it may be used as a method of directly supporting patients for acceptance of disabilities or death.