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Scientific research in psychiatry is creating a gap in the notions of psychiatry that ordinary people actually possess, similar to the progressive distance between scientific psychology and folk and commonsense psychology. The notions that scientific and folk psychiatry share, and those in which they often differ with counterintuitive aspects, are investigated. After outlining the essential features of the concept of common sense and popular psychology and their most representative theories, the central role that popular concepts play not only in psychiatric theory, in particular in diagnosis, but also in daily practice is underlined. These concepts also involve the image of oneself, of the world and interpersonal relationships, showing the impossibility of a psychiatry that aims to do without the common sense, and the need for a careful mediation with popular psychiatry. This aspect is even more important in practical psychiatry which in many ways is similar to popular psychiatry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As with other psychiatric disorders, the literature, also in relation to the etiology of the PPD, asserts the presence of multiple co-causative variables, which already operate during pregnancy, as well as in the postpartum, with the appearance of depressive symptoms. The purpose is to examine the relationship between psychosocial risk variables and the mood of the pregnant, with also the attention on the development of the maternal-fetal bond. A sample of forty-six women, during the third trimester of pregnancy, was administered the EPDS, in order to verify the mood; the psychosocial risk factors form; the PBI, to reveal the early dependence bond; the PAI, to examine the maternal-fetal bond. A week after childbirth and after three months, telephone reviews were carried out and the EPDS was proposed again. The results show that depressive symptoms are already in pregnancy, most intense in the first week after birth compared with that recorded in the third measurement. Their appearance is associated with the presence of stress events before pregnancy; anxiety before and during pregnancy; poor support network; low satisfaction of the couple; low self-esteem; low education. The higher maternal-fetus bonding is associated with an age less than 35 years and with being primiparous. In conclusion, the results identified confirm the central role that some psychosocial risk factors have in the appearance of depressive symptoms already existing during pregnancy and then in the postpartum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: the number of suicides committed by young people is increasing worldwide and official statistics tend to underestimate the phenomenon. Method: rhe research aims at identifying adolescents at risk in relation to their attitudes towards death and suicide and at relating them to mental health problems. 2312 adolescents from Lombardia aged 14 to 19 completed the Multi-Attitude Suicide Tendency Scale (Osman 1993), and the Youth Self-Report (Achenbach 2001). We performed linear correlations, chi-squeare analysis and analyses of variance on the mean scores (ANOVA). Results: 7% of the sample showed problematic attitudes towards death and made statements of suicidal ideation, self harm or suicide attempts. The high-risk group is mainly characterized by spread uneasiness, poor capacity of coping and poor familiarity with their body. From a psychopathological point of view they show more mental problems, in particular on the internalizing end, with a prevalence of depressive disorders or social withdrawal. Conclusions: Surveys through a self report instrument identify a high percentage of at-risk-students with a far higher order of magnitude than the one identified by official statistics. The ratio of recorded suicide attempts to repetitive and severe attempts stated by the adolescents is 1:100 (1.4% of the sample). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we present the theories related to the impact of the traumas on the mechanisms of dissociation, disregulation and dependence; thus we use them to analyze the life history and the scores obtained by two inmate subjects to some psychological tools. In a first moment we describe how the combination of personal and environmental characteristics and the traumatic experiences lived during infancy and adolescence can cause the pathological use of dissociative mechanisms, and can thus favor the onset of a deficit in the abilities of mentalization and autonomous regulation of affects and impulses in the subject. We therefore shortly narrate the life histories of two inmates, Mr. G and Mrs. A, both presenting problems of substance dependence and traumatic experiences. In a first moment we expose the principal events of their history, with a particular attention to those that lead to their detention, therefore we introduce and discuss the scores they obtained to a battery of psychological tools that investigate the level of psychopathy (through the PCL-R), the dissociative experiences (through the DES-II), the characteristics of state and trait anger (through the STAXI-2), the presence of traumatic experiences (through the TEC) and various characteristics of personality (through the MMPI-2). We then analyze their history in the light of the data underlined by the tests scores, as well as of the theories exposed in the first part of the work. We consider therefore the possible developmental trajectories deriving from the different experiences of life in a normal subject and in a subject with pathological dissociation, and we finally introduce our theory according to which the subject that present a dependence, considered as a result of an affective disregulation, suffer from the impossibility to autonomously regulate the impulses, with particular attention to anger, and don't have therefore other choice that to put them in action or hypercontrol them through an obsessive type of rumination mechanism. We then conclude putting in evidence that this point of view can provide a new interpretation for some antisocial and dependence behaviors, as well as useful cues to direct possible therapies both in prison that of preventive type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existential psychiatry thinks about mental illness as a perturbation of human beings' relation to the world such that it loses its ordinary thoughtless fluidity. Although, this definition has only been reserved to the nosographical category of psychosis. In the present work, we will further investigate the constituent elements of mental illness as existential psychiatry defines it appealing to Martin Heidegger's existential analytics, in order to expand the heuristic value of that definition to a wider variety of psychopathological phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution is concerned with methodological aspects and some psychometric results at the basis of the validation of a questionnaire for the facilitation of diagnosis according to Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) (PDM Task Force 2006). This assessment procedure system is the QFM-27, clinician report questionnaire on Mental Functioning and on levels of personality organization: it is structured on 27 items that articulate the nine dimensions of M axis of PDM by crossing them with the three levels of development and organization of personality conceptualized by PDM and operationalized in the following way: - Level of resources/means, supporting development, integration and healthy organization; - Level of conflicts, contributing to neurotic organization; - Level of dissociative traumatic processes, involving a disorganizing deficiency, contributing to range of borderline organization. QFM System aims to make operative some PDM diagnosis aspects about the Mental Functioning Profile (M Axis) according to what PDM's Authors argue on the relationship between M Axis and the formulation of some hypotheses on personality organization. It is possible to find the QFM system at the website www.pdm-qfm.com [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]