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Mentalizzazione genitoriale, funzionamento psicologico ed esiti psicopatologici nel bambino nell’ambito della middle childhood.
No full textIntroduction: Building upon the London Parent-Child Project (Fonagy et al., 1991), the study of mentalization processes expanded broadly over the past twenty years. Nevertheless, studies have mainly focused on early childhood and preschool age therefore exploring the effects of those processes on the child's psychological and psychopathological outcomes. However, mentalizing abilities may also play a leading role in subsequent periods such as middle childhood that has been understudied in attachment-based studies despite the significant changes at this stage affecting the child and his family. Finally, most of the studies have dealt exclusively with the mother-child relationship leaving out the possible role played by father’s mentalizing.
For this reason, the main purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to explore child’s psychological functioning and both maternal and paternal mentalizing during middle childhood by means of the following operationalizations of parental mentalization: Parental Insightfulness (Oppenheim & Koren-Karie, 2002) and Parental Reflective Functioning (PRF; Slade, 2005).
More particularly, the specific aims of this dissertation were organized into the three chapters as follows: (I) the presentation of the first data concerning the Insightfulness Assessment (IA; Oppenheim & Koren-Karie, 2002) in an Italian community sample; (II) the exploration of the role of both maternal and paternal mentalizing on child’s psychological outcomes (i.e., internalizing and externalizing symptoms and social-emotional competencies) and (III) on levels of parenting stress and co-parenting alliance.
Method: A non-experimental cross-sectional design involving a convenience sample consisting of 87 parents and their 50 children 8-12 years of age was used. The sample completed the Insightfulness Assessment Procedure to assess Parental Insightfulness while Parental Reflective Functioning was assessed with the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire. Children’s mentalizing abilities were assessed applying to the Child Attachment Interview the Child and Adolescent Reflective Functioning Scale. And finally, parent- and self-report questionnaires were used to evaluate child’s psychological outcomes, and parenting stress and co-parenting alliance levels.
Results: The main results show the important role played by parental mentalization on both child’s psychological outcomes and parental variables. The data highlight the relation between parental mentalization and both child’s externalizing and internalizing symptoms and social-emotional competencies. A further element to be considered concerns the intergenerational transmission which indicates Parental Insightfulness as an indirect predictor of child's psychological outcomes through the mediational role of child's mentalizing abilities. Finally, these findings emphasize the connection between parental mentalization and parenting stress. More uncertain results were instead found regarding co-parenting alliance.
Discussion: Overall, the results are discussed within the attachment framework underlining the importance of considering mentalizing processes and showing the need for further studies that investigate their implications especially in relation to: (1) a multi-method approach for investigating the construct; (2) a wider involvement of the father figure and (3) the relevance that mentalizing processes have within the parent-child interactions also considering evidence-based mentalization-oriented interventions to strengthen positive dynamics within the family system
Paternal mind matters: exploring fathers’ mentalization and its implications for family system and child’s psychological outcomes
No full textBuilding emotional security in middle childhood through parental mentalization
No full textIntroduction: Mentalization, operationalized as Reflective Function (RF; Fonagy et al., 1991),
involves the capacity to consider self and others in terms of mental states and also the ability to
understand that self and other behaviors are underpinned by psychological motivations, thought,
feelings and desires. Despite the considerable number of studies that underline the importance of
parental mentalization as a protective factor for child’s development (Slade et al., 2005), data on
the relationship between parental RF and emotional security in middle childhood are still lacking.
Aim: this study aims to investigate the role of parental mentalization in influencing their children’s
emotional security in middle childhood.
Method: the study involved 75 participants (25 Italian family triads): 25 mothers, 25 fathers, 25
children aged 9-14 (M = 11.29, SD = 2.42). All parents completed the Adult Attachment Interview
(George et al., 1985), coded using the Reflective Functioning Scale (RFS; Fonagy et al., 1998),
while children completed the Child Attachment Interview (CAI; Shmueli-Goetz et al., 2008).
Results: data showed significant positive association between maternal RF and security CAI
subscales, as Emotional Openness (r .492, p=.015) and Resolution of Conflicts (r .479, p=.015),
and negative association between maternal RF and Involving Anger with both mother (r -.397,
p=.050) and father (r -.485, p=.016). Regression analysis showed that maternal RF represents a
significant predictor (p < .05) of Emotional Openness (β =.43) and Resolution of Conflicts (β =.42).
None associations between paternal RF and CAI subscales were found.
Conclusion: results show that maternal RF plays a crucial role in middle childhood for the
development of children’s emotional security, considered as the ability to contemplate a complex
range of feelings within the relational life episodes. On the other hand, paternal RF will probably
display a stronger role during permanent adolescence
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Mentalization and Emotion Regulation in Disruptive Behavior Disorders and Somatic Symptom Disorders during the middle childhood.
No full textAssessing mental representatios with respect to parents and post-traumatic symptomatology among children with disruptive behavior disorders.
No full textIntroduction: In line with a consistent literature, children with externalizing disorders have experienced some traumatic events, such as experiences of rejection, abuse, violence assisted.Recent studies are examining the role of attachment for a better evaluation of this disorder. Aims of the study: The aims of this study are: 1) to evaluate the post-traumatic symptomatology in a group of children diagnosed withDisruptive Behavior Disorders; 2) to evaluate theirs attachment models; 3) to test the association between post-traumatic symptomatology and attachment organization. Material and methods: Forty consecutive Italian patients aged from 8 to 15 (M=10.7; SD=2.01) were administered the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC-A), a self-report evaluating post-traumatic symptomatology, and the Child Attachment Interview (CAI), a semi-structured interview assessing the attachment representations. Moreover socio-demographic data were collected. Results: Regarding post-traumatic symptomatology, patients with Disruptive Behavior Disorders showed high level of Anger and low level of Dissociation. Findings on the distribution of attachment models showed a significant presence of insecure attachment with respect to both parents and Disorganized attachment was found in more than half of the patients. Conclusions: This study suggests that attachment organization and post-traumatic symptomatology may be fundamental elements to be assessed with Disruptive Behavior Disordersin childhood and to understand the mental state and psychological features of children affected by this disorders. The clinical implications for future research directions and the methodological limitations are discusse
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