Understanding maladaptive daydreaming from the attachment framework: The intertwining roles of parental care, unresolved attachment, depression/anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD) is an excessive absorption in vivid fantasies interfering with individuals' daily functioning, which has been associated with adverse psychological outcomes and adult attachment insecurities. However, no study to date has addressed the relationships between MD, parental care, unresolved attachment, and psychological symptoms (depression/anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder; OCD) in a sample of young adults. In this study, 1295 young adults (401 males) completed an online survey including the Parental Bonding Instrument, Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale, Adult Unresolved Attachment Questionnaire, and the DSM-5 Level 1 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure.

Attachment, Mentalization, Emotion Dysregulation, and Empathy in Eating Disorders: Comparing Anorexic and Bulimic Patients.

Eating disorders (EDs) represent a wide range of clinical symptoms related to food intake, body image, and weight issues, and include anorexia nervosa-restricting type (AN-R), anorexia nervosa-binge-purge type (AN-BP), and bulimia nervosa (BN). The aim was to investigate the characteristics of attachment, mentalization, emotion dysregulation, and empathy in a sample of 102 patients with EDs. A sample of 102 patients and therapists completed a series of measures for the assessment of ED pathology, mentalization, empathy, and emotion dysregulation.

Changes in mentalization in patients with personality disorders during sequential brief-Adlerian psychodynamic psychotherapy: The role of therapists' technique and countertransference.

Unlabelled: Mentalization, that is the capacity to understand our and others' behaviors in terms of intentional mental states, represents one of the core features of personality disorders (PDs) and can be related to therapists' countertransference (CT) and interventions.

Aims: The aim of the present work was to study the relationship between therapists' technique, therapists' CT, and patients' mentalization, in a sample of patients with PDs undergoing a 40-session program of sequential brief-adlerian psychodynamic psychotherapy, a psychodynamic therapeutic model specifically developed for the treatment of PDs in public mental health services.

Method: Eighty-seven patients with PD and their therapists completed ratings of mentalization (mentalization imbalances scale and reflective functioning questionnaire), CT (therapist response questionnaire), and therapists' intervention (comparative psychotherapy process scale) at five different time points (Sessions 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40).

Personality and mentalization: A latent profile analysis of mentalizing problematics in adult patients.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between patients' mentalizing problematics and their personality; specifically, it aimed to identify clusters of individuals characterized by specific patterns of mentalizing imbalances and to analyze the relationship between these and diagnosis of personality disorder (PD), nonmentalizing modes, emotion dysregulation, and interpersonal reactivity.

Methods: Four hundred therapeutic dyads were recruited. A part of these (n = 183) only completed clinician-report measures, Mentalization Imbalances Scale, and Modes of Mentalization Scale, while others (n = 217) also completed patients' self-report measures, which were Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and Interpersonal Reactivity Index.

Countertransference responses mediate the relationship between patients' overall defense functioning and therapists' interventions.

The aim of this work was to investigate the relationship between therapists' techniques (supportive/expressive intervention level - ESIL), therapists' countertransference (CT) and patients' defense level of functioning (ODF). We hypothesized that CT could play a mediating role in the relationship between patients' ODF and therapists' ESIL. 65 psychotherapy sessions were rated by two different raters each with the Psychodynamic Interventions Rating Scale and the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scale.

Mentalizing Subtypes in Eating Disorders: A Latent Profile Analysis.

Mentalizing, the mental capacity to understand oneself and others in terms of mental states, has been found to be reduced in several mental disorders. Some studies have suggested that eating disorders (EDs) may also be associated with impairments in mentalizing. The aim of this work is to investigate the possible presence of mentalizing subtypes in a sample of patients with EDs.

Further data on the reliability of the mentalization imbalances scale and of the modes of mentalization scale.

The aim of this study was to provide data on the Inter-Rater Reliability (IRR) and the test-retest reliability of the Mentalization Imbalances Scale (MIS) and the Modes of Mentalization Scale (MMS) in two different studies. Three junior raters and two senior raters assessed blindly 15 session transcripts of psychotherapy of five patients, using both the MIS and the MMS. The same 15 sessions were rated after the junior raters completed a training at the use of the scales and after on month from the end of the training to assess testretest reliability.

Assessing mentalization in psychotherapy: first validation of the Mentalization Imbalances Scale.

The aim of this study was to provide data on the preliminary validation of a clinician-report multidimensional assessment measure of mentalization (Mentalization Imbalances Scale, MIS). A random national sample of psychotherapists (N=190) completed the MIS to identify mentalization imbalances, and the Personality Disorder Checklist to assess the personality disorders (PDs) of randomly selected patients currently in their care. Factor analysis confirmed the presence of six factors that represented different imbalances of mentalization: cognitive, affective, automatic, external, imbalance toward others, and imbalance toward self.