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The study aims to compare psychometric properties and clinical utility of Kennedy Axis V (K Axis) and 12-items version of the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0), a comparable version of the 36-items one included in DSM-5, comparing them with other significant instruments for the assessment of personality. A sample of 25 clinical inpatients of a therapeutic community in Northern Italy was assessed with different tools: K Axis, WHODAS 2.0, IPO, SCL-90-R and SIPP-118. K Axis showed low internal consistency, unlike WHODAS 2.0. Moreover, significant correlations were found between both WHODAS 2.0 and K Axis and IPO and SIPP-118. However, no significant correlations emerged between K Axis and WHODAS 2.0. Even if further investigation will be needed, such as the increase of the sample and the update of the WHODAS version, K Axis and WHODAS 2.0 has proven to be useful tools for the evaluation of global functioning; however, while WHODAS is more consistent from a psychometric point of view, K Axis presents a multidimensional view of the functioning of the patient.

Mindfulness refers to the ability to be aware of and attentive to internal and external events, without becoming overwhelmed or feeling the need to react automatically. Recent studies indicate that this ability is associated with the following factors: mental health, psychological functioning, and stress reduction. Although questionnaires have been developed to measure mindfulness, so far these have not been adapted for use within the Italian population. Thus, the aim of our studies was to investigate the reliability and validity of an Italian version of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al. Assessment, 13, 27–45, 2006). The FFMQ is a self-report measure that is based on a five-facet model (i.e., Observe, Describe, Act with Awareness, Nonjudge, and Nonreact). In the first study, internal consistency, factor structure, and concurrent validity analyses were carried out on a sample of 559 volunteers. The second study entailed test–retest analyses on a different sample of 43 students. The results showed that the Italian FFMQ: (a) has a similar factor structure to the original English version; (b) has good to excellent internal consistency as a whole (alpha = 0.86) with sub-scale consistency ranging from 0.65 to 0.81, and test–retest stability for the total score being 0.71; (c) has good concurrent validity as demonstrated by significant correlations between the FFMQ scores and a number of self-report measures related to mindfulness. Our findings support both the adaptation of the FFMQ to the Italian context as well as the conceptualization of mindfulness in multi-faceted terms

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of an Italian version of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004). Method: Three studies were completed. First, factorial structure, internal consistency, and concurrent validity of our Italian version of the DERS were examined with a sample of 323 students (77% female; mean age 25.6). Second, test-retest analyses were completed using a different sample of 61 students (80% female; mean age 24.7). Third, the scores produced by a small clinical sample of participants (N = 38; mean age = 24.2) affected by anorexia, binge eating disorder, or bulimia were compared to those of an age-matched, nonclinical female sample (N = 38; mean age = 24.7). Results: The factorial structure replicated quite well the six-factor structure proposed by Gratz and Roemer. The internal consistency and test-retest reliability were adequate and comparable to previous findings. The validity was good, as indicated by both the concurrent validity analysis and the clinical-nonclinical sample comparison. Conclusions: These studies provide further support for the multidimensional model of emotion regulation postulated by Gratz and Roemer and strengthen the rationale for cross-cultural utilization of the DERS. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

In their review, Ablon, Levy, and Smith-Hansen (2011) showed that the Psychotherapy Process Q-set (PQS; Jones, 2000) has been applied to a large range of studies with different methods and aims, from Randomized Control Trials (RCT) to naturalistic studies and single-case designs. Focusing on our colleagues' work, we will highlight the contribution of the PQS to research in psychotherapy, not only in process-outcome studies, but also into the therapeutic action debates, the specific vs common factors discussion, and the insight vs relation dialect. According to our studies, PQS has played the most relevant and innovative role in psychoanalysis. Ablon et al. showed how Jones left the clinical inheritance of his empirical method. One of PQS's strengths deals with the Q-sort methodology (Block, 1961; Stephenson, 1953) that enables both an empirical study of human subjectivity (McKnown & Thomas, 1988) and the application of rigorous data analysis for single-case designs, such as the P-technique and time series analysis. PQS, as colleagues have shown, is useful in single-case designs that, despite their limitations in the generalization of the findings (Kazdin, 2002), capture the richness and complexity of the clinical dialogue and describe the uniqueness of the patient and therapist dyad and interaction structures.

In the last decades, both cognitive and personality researchers and different-oriented therapists and clinicians have converged on the powerful role that narrative memory plays, as anchoring aspect of personality and identity. Many studies have demonstrated that spontaneous self defining memories (Singer & Salovey, 1993; Blagov & Singer, 2004) evoked and provoked in clinical setting can provide valuable information for assessment about repetitive themes and recurrent patterns of feelings linked to ongoing goals or conflicts that are central to the individual. However, the work still leaves open the question of how human beings think in this manner and how personal memories, spontaneously evoked during the clinical interview, are useful for personality assessment and case conceptualization. The present study intended to pursue three goals. First, the aim was to introduce and to demonstrate reliability and validity of the Coding System for Autobiographical Memory Narratives in Psychotherapy (Singer & Bonalume, 2008) for identifying and coding autobiographical memory narratives in clinical interview. The study demonstrates good inter-rater reliability and the utility of the coding system. Consequentially, we aimed to investigate, first the relationship among autobiographical memories dimensions, as content, specificity, meaning making and emotional tone, and the relationship between these memories dimensions and patient’s self and personality functioning, evaluated with clusters of indexes, according to the Exner’s Comprehensive System for Rorschach (Exner, 2003).The autobiographical memories during semi-structured clinical interviews for bio-psycho-social data recollection and Rorschach responses of 30 patients were recollected. The Coding System for Autobiographical Memory Narratives in Psychotherapy (Singer & Bonalume, 2008), the Classification and Scoring System for Self-defining Autobiographical Memories (Singer e Blagov, 2001) and for Content (Thorne & McLean, 20

Introduction. Kennedy Axis V or K Axis acts is an alternative tool to the DSM-IVTR Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale, that many researchers describe as a scale with poor inter-rater reliability and clinical utility. Unlike the GAF scale, K Axis provides a multidimensional and multiaxial approach to measure personal, social and interpersonal functioning in psychiatric outpatients and inpatients. In this study, we examined K Axis's inter-raters reliability by using it with an Italian clinical population. Methods. Clinicians used Kennedy Axis V to assess global functioning among 180 inpatients, in 9 psychiatric services in Lombardia and Piemonte. Patients were divided into 4 different diagnostic groups, according to the DSM-IV-TR criteria. Results. Intraclass correlations between two independent raters's scores reveal high level of inter-rater reliability for all K Axis scales (0,633<0,813). Highly significant results in the Kruskal-Wallis test demonstrate that the patient diagnosis influence all the scales scores. Significant differences in patients functioning profiles in all K Axis scales, apart from Violence one, were noted between different diagnosis groups. Conclusions. In this study high level of raters agreement was noted, even if K Axis scales were used in different mental health services from different clinicians. K Axis scales provide a useful profile of patient global functioning, in line with the specific pathology.

Negli ultimi decenni, alcuni modelli teorico-clinici hanno rivalutato il ruolo della narrazione autobiografica nei processi di valutazione diagnostica e di trattamento (Angus & McLeod, 2004). Diversi studi hanno dimostrato che l’analisi delle “self-defining memories” (Singer & Salovey, 1993), ossia di ricordi personali emotivamente salienti, indotti o spontaneamente evocati dai pazienti nel corso dei colloqui clinici, facilita e favorisce la “formulazione del caso” e la scelta dell’indicazione al trattamento, perché permette di identificare temi relazionali ripetitivi e pattern di emozioni rilevanti. Il lavoro di ricerca lascia ancora aperte, però, alcune questioni riguardo all’utilizzo che i terapeuti ne posso fare per comprendere il funzionamento del Sé. Questo studio intende indagare la relazione tra alcuni aspetti di funzionamento di personalità di soggetti clinici e il tono emozionale, il grado di specificità e di integrazione delle loro self-defining memories, raccontate spontaneamente durante i colloqui clinici. Sono stati selezionati i colloqui clinici per la raccolta dei dati bio-psico-sociali di 30 soggetti che hanno partecipato a un processo diagnostico presso l’Associazione per la Ricerca in Psicologia clinica (A.R.P., Milano). Il grado di specificità e di integrazione dei ricordi è stato codificato con il Classification and Scoring System for Self-defining Autobiographical Memories (Singer e Blagov, 2001), mentre il tono emozionale attraverso l’applicazione dell’analisi testuale degli Emotion-Abstraction Patterns (Mergenthaler, 2008). Il funzionamento di personalità, invece, è stato misurato con alcuni indici riassuntivi del test di Rorschach, siglato e interpretato secondo il Sistema Comprensivo di Exner (Exner, 2003). L’applicazione delle Equazioni di stima generalizzate (GEEs; Liang and Zeger, 1986) ha permesso di valutare il rapporto tra il livello evolutivo del funzionamento di personalità e le dimensioni dei ricordi autobiografici. Emergono risult