大島 郁葉

This report presents the follow-up treatment course of a previously published case that demonstrated the effectiveness of prolonged exposure (PE) therapy for a disaster relief worker. The patient, a municipal employee in Fukushima Prefecture, developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mood disorders after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent disasters. This follow-up focuses on the period from 2021 to early 2024, during which the patient experienced symptom recurrence after his father’s death. This event revealed psychological patterns similar to his disaster-related responses. Schema therapy was introduced to address over-adaptive work behaviors and vulnerabilities in relationships, identified as relapse risk factors. Combined with antidepressants, schema therapy achieved sustained improvement. This longitudinal perspective demonstrates schema therapy’s effectiveness in addressing underlying vulnerabilities when symptoms re-emerge after trauma-focused treatment. The findings underscore how initial trauma responses may interact with subsequent life events and suggest schema therapy’s potential as a secondary intervention for disaster relief workers facing complex challenges.

Abstract This study investigated the factor structure and determined the reliability and validity of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire–Japanese version (CAT‐Q‐J) among 204 autistic and 410 non‐autistic people. Since a confirmatory factor analysis revealed no factor validity of the CAT‐Q‐J for both autistic and non‐autistic adults, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to ensure the psychometric properties matched those of the original scale as much as possible. The results showed the CAT‐Q‐J comprised three subscales, a four‐item compensation subscale, a five‐item masking scale, and a five‐item assimilation subscale. The overall CAT‐Q‐J and all three subscales showed sufficient internal consistency and moderate‐to‐good and stable test–retest reliability in both the autistic and non‐autistic samples. Convergent validity was also supported by the correlations found with measures of autistic traits, well‐being, anxiety, and depression. Different from the original CAT‐Q, compensation/masking for the autistic sample was not correlated with mental health or autistic traits. The reliability and the validity of the overall CAT‐Q‐J were confirmed; however, caution should be exercised when interpreting its subscales.