Patient personality and therapist responses in the psychotherapy of adolescents with depressive disorders: toward the - third edition.

Depressive disorders in adolescence pose unique challenges for assessment and treatment, particularly due to their high comorbidity with various personality disorders. Moreover, young depressed patients may elicit very intense and difficult-to-manage emotional responses in therapists (in this context, countertransference). This study aimed at empirically identifying specific personality disorders (or subtypes) among adolescents with depressive pathology and exploring distinct countertransference patterns emerging in their psychotherapy: 100 adolescents (58 with depressive disorders; 42 with other clinical conditions) were assessed by their respective clinicians (n=100) using the psychodiagnostic chart-adolescent of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) - second edition, and the therapist response questionnaire for adolescents.

Relationship between Executive Functions, Social Cognition, and Attachment State of Mind in Adolescence: An Explorative Study.

Background: The passage from pre-adolescence to adolescence is presented as a turning point for the achievement of those abilities in social understanding as they commonly appear in adulthood. Developmental perspectives point to the possible role of neuro-cognitive maturation and social experiences to facilitate this growth. This paper has the goal to goalsto propose a valid and reliable measure of the new quantitative and qualitative advancements in social understanding occurring in the adolescent passage; relying on this, the research has two main objectives (a) to establish the associations between the advancements in social understanding and the executive functions held responsible for the neuro-cognitive rearrangements of adolescence; (c) to evidence the significant associations between attachment models and the development of social understanding in this phase of life.

Non-Binary Clients' Experiences of Psychotherapy: Uncomfortable and Affirmative Approaches.

Non-binary people may face specific challenges in psychological settings. Psychotherapists often display a lack of preparation for non-binary gender identities, resulting in overt or subtle forms of prejudice that compromise the therapeutic alliance. The present study aimed to provide data on non-binary clients' positive and negative experiences within therapeutic relationships.

Personality, Defenses, Mentalization, and Epistemic Trust Related to Pandemic Containment Strategies and the COVID-19 Vaccine: A Sequential Mediation Model.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has considerably influenced all domains of people's lives worldwide, determining a high increase in overall psychological distress and several clinical conditions. The study attempted to shed light on the relationship between the strategies adopted to manage the pandemic, vaccine hesitancy, and distinct features of personality and mental functioning.

Methods: The sample consisted of 367 Italian individuals (68.

Two modes of being together: The levels of intersubjectivity and human relatedness in neuroscience and psychoanalytic thinking.

The notion of intersubjectivity has achieved a primary status in contemporary psychoanalytic debate, stimulating new theoretical proposals as well as controversies. This paper presents an overview of the main contributions on inter-subjectivity in the field of neurosciences. In humans as well as-probably-in other species, the ability for emotional resonance is guaranteed early in development.

Patient personality dimensions, relational patterns and therapeutic alliance in clinical practice: An empirical investigation.

Introduction: Transference (meant in this context, as the patient relational patterns expressed towards the clinician) and therapeutic alliance play a crucial role in the treatment of personality pathology. To date, no empirical study examined the association between these two dimensions of the clinical relationship and patients' personality maladaptive traits in psychotherapy.

Methods: A national sample of therapists (N = 100) of different theoretical orientations assessed dysfunctional personality features of a patient in their care using a comprehensive and empirically grounded dimensional diagnostic approach from the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure-200 (SWAP-200).

States of Mind with Respect to Attachment: a comparative study between women who killed their children and mothers diagnosed with post-partum depression.

Introduction: Attachment theory has been linked with the caregiving system, acting as a drive for a mother's behavior towards her offspring. The most dramatic consequence of distress following maternity is filicide. Despite this, only few studies addressed the attachment models of women who committed filicide, and very little provided comparisons with mothers diagnosed with post-partum depression.

From a Symptom-Based to a Person-Centered Approach in Treating Depressive Disorders in Adolescence: A Clinical Case Formulation Using the (PDM-2)'s Framework.

Background: Depressive disorders in adolescence are among the most challenging clinical syndromes to diagnostically identify and treat in psychotherapy. The (PDM-2) proposes an integration between nomothetic knowledge and an idiographic understanding of adolescent patients suffering from depression to promote a person-centered approach. This single-case study was aimed at describing and discussing the clinical value of an accurate diagnostic assessment within the PDM-2 framework.

Advances in the management of haemophilia: emerging treatments and their mechanisms.

Mainstay haemophilia treatment, namely intravenous factor replacement, poses several clinical challenges including frequent injections due to the short half-life of recombinant factors, intravenous administration (which is particularly challenging in those with difficult venous access), and the risk of inhibitor development. These impact negatively upon quality of life and treatment compliance, highlighting the need for improved therapies. Several novel pharmacological therapies developed for haemophilia aim to rebalance the clotting cascade and potentially circumvent the aforementioned challenges.

Differences in MMPI-2 personality profiles among filicide and homicide women.

Introduction: Filicide is an act of terrible violence that generates dismay and astonishment and invites everybody to ask: why?

Aim: As the transition to motherhood is a critical period for any woman, requiring the activation of deep personality resources, the aim of this study was to deepen our knowledge of the personality profiles of new mothers by comparing a sample of 16 women who had killed their own child ("filicide mothers") with women who had murdered someone outside of their family ("non-family homicide women").

Method: All of the women had a similar psychiatric diagnosis, as assessed by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I). All were assessed by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 2 (MMPI-2) 2 to 4 years after the court's judgment.

Personality structure and attachment models of women who kill their children. A systematic review on maternal filicide.

Background: A mother's ability to attune with her child is crucial in structuring one's attachment style and personality. Both dimensions shape mother-child interactions, and they are therefore likely to impact on the risk of filicide. Numerous risk factors for filicide have been identified, but personality and attachment look relatively understudied.

Personality traits in a sample of Italian filicide mothers.

Several studies focused on mothers' psychopathological and environmental risk factors linked to filicide, to understand the genesis of this violent act. Considering the transition to motherhood a critical period for any woman, requiring the activation of deep personality resources, the aim of this study was to detect, in a sample of 16 filicide women hospitalized in Italian Forensic Psychiatric Hospitals, the recurrent characteristics with a specific focus on personality traits. Women were assessed using Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I), Big Five Inventory (BFI) and Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI).

Anger as a Basic Emotion and Its Role in Personality Building and Pathological Growth: The Neuroscientific, Developmental and Clinical Perspectives.

Anger is probably one of the mostly debated basic emotions, owing to difficulties in detecting its appearance during development, its functional and affective meaning (is it a positive or a negative emotion?), especially in human beings. Behaviors accompanied by anger and rage serve many different purposes and the nuances of aggressive behaviors are often defined by the symbolic and cultural framework and social contexts. Nonetheless, recent advances in neuroscientific and developmental research, as well as clinical psychodynamic investigation, afford a new view on the role of anger in informing and guiding many aspects of human conducts.

The role of attachment insecurity in the emergence of anxiety symptoms in children and adolescents with migraine: an empirical study.

Background: It is widely recognised that there are associations between headache, psychiatric comorbidity and attachment insecurity in both adults and children. The aims of this study were: 1) to compare perceived attachment security and anxiety in children and adolescents with migraine without aura and a healthy control group; 2) to test whether the child's perceived security of attachment to the mother and the father mediated the association between migraine and anxiety.

Methods: One hundred children and adolescents with Migraine without Aura were compared with a control group of 100 children without headache.

Categorical and dimensional approaches in the evaluation of the relationship between attachment and personality disorders: an empirical study.

Although several studies have highlighted the relationship between attachment states of mind and personality disorders, their findings have not been consistent, possibly due to the application of the traditional taxonomic classification model of attachment. A more recently developed dimensional classification of attachment representations, including more specific aspects of trauma-related representations, may have advantages. In this study, we compare specific associations and predictive power of the categorical attachment and dimensional models applied to 230 Adult Attachment Interview transcripts obtained from personality disordered and nonpsychiatric subjects.

Reliability and clinical usefulness of the personality inventory for DSM-5 in clinically referred adolescents: A preliminary report in a sample of Italian inpatients.

Background: The DSM-5 Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD) provides the opportunity to integrate the needed developmental perspective in the assessment of personality pathology. Based on this model, Krueger and colleagues (2012) developed the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5), which operationalizes the proposed DSM-5 traits.

Methods: Eighty-five consecutively admitted Italian adolescent inpatients were administered the Italian translation of the PID-5, in order to obtain preliminary data on PID-5 reliability and clinical usefulness in clinically referred adolescents.

Emotional reactivity in referred youth with disruptive behavior disorders: the role of the callous-unemotional traits.

Deficits in emotional reactivity are frequently reported in Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBDs). A deficit in prosocial emotions, namely the callous unemotional traits (CU), may be a mediator of emotional reactivity. Our aim is to investigate subjective emotional reactivity towards visual stimuli with different affective valence in youths with DBDs and healthy controls.

[Maternal attachment patterns and personality in post partum depression].

Aims: This study investigates the prevalence of post partum depression (PPD) in a sample of Roman women, and the role of socio-demographic variables, personality structure and maternal attachment patterns, in order to identify primary and secondary prevention strategies.

Methods: Data were collected in two phases. During the third trimester of pregnancy, a sample of 453 women completed a socio-demographic data sheet and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS).