An Initiative by the Tohoku University Department of Psychiatry: The To GEMS Project
Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine,
Endowed Department of Preventive Psychiatry
Associate Professor – Kazunori Matsumoto
At Tohoku University, the departments and organizations that make up the Department ofPsychiatry—the Department of Psychoneurology in the Graduate School of Medicine, Tohoku
University Hospital, and the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine Endowed Departmentof Preventive Psychiatry, established via a donation from Miyagi Prefecture in October 2011—havecome together to provide support and conduct research in the realms of psychiatric medicine andpublic health in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake. The primary active members in FY
2013 were Matsumoto, Takahashi, Uchida, Koshimichi, Mitate, and Saito from the Endowed
Department, and Ueda, Katsura, Sakuma, and Sato from the Graduate Department ofPsychoneurology. The activities of the Tohoku University Department of Psychiatry form the To
GEMS Project: the Tohoku University Department of Psychiatry Great East Japan Earthquake Mental
Health Support and Research Project.
Much of our activities have been conducted with the cooperation of the MDMHCC, where ourstaff also work part-time. In the Ishinomaki area, Sato and Ueda have collaborated with theIshinomaki Regional Center of the MDMHCC to provide regular outreach to disaster survivors withsuspected or confirmed mental illnesses, conducted lectures for supporters and survivors, andprovided specialists with technical support. In Iwanuma, Katsura continues to provide regularmonthly training and case study support mainly for public health nurses and supporters of residentsof container-type and private rental housing. Sakuma and Takahashi have provided support formunicipal staff, and Matsumoto and Ueda conducted awareness lectures for supporters and thegeneral public.
In terms of our research activities, as we describe elsewhere, their scope is quite large. Our main
projects were as follows: (1) health survey of public service employees in disaster areas, (2) hospitalsurvey on psychiatric care in the emergency and acute phases, and (3) research on the development
and dissemination of mental support methods in disaster areas. In Project (1), we have also
incorporated support activities for these employees, and in addition to jointly implementing postsurvey workplace health counseling with the MDMHCC, we have provided advice to human resource
officials and employee-focused training. Sakuma, Ueda, Takahashi, and Koshimichi have overseen
these efforts in Kesennuma and Minamisanriku, with Takahashi working with nurses in disaster areas,and Ueda in charge of SWC members. For Project (2), we have solicited the cooperation of the Hyogo
Disaster Mental Health Care Center, are currently implementing interventions in the Motoyoshi
District of Kesennuma aimed at testing the implementability of Skills for Psychological Recovery(SPR), a support program specially designed for use in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction.
Additionally, to educate residents and supporters on both this approach and the basic ideologies andskills of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and to have both these groups learn a bit more about
stress care in the context of daily life activities, Ueda has spearheaded a set of workshops titled“Training Exercises for the Mind and Heart.” These initiatives have also been implemented as part ofresearch projects made possible by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, the Ministry ofEducation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research program,and the Senshin Medical Research Foundation. In particular, in July 2013, as part of the Ministry ofHealth, Labour, and Welfare Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research project titled “Research onEpidemiological Surveys to Determine the Status of Mental Illness and on the Development ofEffective Interventional Methods after the Great East Japan Earthquake” (Principal Investigator:Hiroo Matsuoka), a symposium titled “Psychiatric Disaster Damage and Responses Thereto After theGreat East Japan Earthquake: Looking Back at Miyagi Prefecture During the Immediate Post-Disasterand Acute Periods” was held, and we published a record of the proceedings thereof.
Further, we worked alongside the MDMHCC to host a psychological support skill-up training,planned as part of human resource development efforts in mental health care facilities throughout
Miyagi Prefecture after the disaster. For these lectures, we obtained the assistance of Dr. Yutaka Onoof the CBT Center in an effort to train specialists capable of practicing CBT so that they may use it- 80 -to contribute to mid- to long-term support efforts in disaster areas. Finally, we assisted the foreign
support organization Give2Asia in their support projects for the MDMHCC.
In the future, we of the Tohoku University Department of Psychiatry aim to collaborate andcooperate with the MDMHCC to contribute to the long-term reconstruction of the field of psychiatriccare in Miyagi.
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Hiroo Matsuoka,
Professor
Kazunori Matsumoto, Associate Professor
Yoko Takahashi,
Assistant Professor
Tomohoro Uchida,
Assistant Professor
Rie Koshimichi,
Technical Assistant
Kyoko Mitate,
Administrative Assistant
Mayumi Saito,
Administrative AssistantCurrent as of March 2014

- 81 -(Psychiatrist)(Psychiatrist)(Nurse)(Clinical psychologist)(Clinical psychologist)