Editoriale - Editorial

The online version of Rivista di Psicologia Clinica (Journal of Clinical Psychology), founded in 2006, is now on its 11th year of publication. This is its 25th issue. Rivista di Psicologia Clinica was published on print from 1982 to 1997, including two short breaks. The printed version published 41 issues. In addition to 14 years of publication on print, there are 11 years of publication online. In addition to 41 printed issues, there are 25 online issues, overall resulting in 66 issues published by the journal. Let’s briefly look at our readers, their geographical distribution and the journal usage. The goal of our publications is not oriented to uncritically increase the number of our readers but, according to a coherent editorial policy, to develop the debate on the definition, methodology, epistemology and practice of Clinical Psychology. These aspect are linked each other based on the constant evolution of clinical practice in psychology and psychotherapy

The relationship between health care users’ demand and the health care system’s response: a research on change observed in the health care system, in the hospital and in the territory

The present research study aims at exploring the representation of the health service within a group of hospital physicians and nurses. The objective is to identify how the symbolic dynamic of hospital workers shapes their own praxis. The texts of interviews with 25 hospital workers have been subjected to Emotional Text Analysis (ETA). Five clusters emerge from the analysis where the topic of giving life and avoiding death is central and where the hospital assumes a thaumaturgical and basically omnipotent role. This is in conflict with recognizing the limitations of therapy. Only in the background the culture of curing the patients appears, characterized by aggressive reactivity towards the crisis which leads patients to emergency intervention because crises are ascribed to deviances frommedical prescription. Emergency intervention is ultimately the kind of intervention which the hospital believes it is capable to provide. Another problem is the lack of filters provided by bureaucratized general practitioners, whose cooperation would be essential, but who are supposed to have no longer the necessary relationship with their patients

Emotional textual analysis

Emotional Textual Analysis (ETA) analyzes the symbolic level of texts as a part of applied research and interventions. The method is based on the study of the association of dense words, words that convey most of the emotional components of texts. In this approach, language is thought of as an organizer of the relationship between the individual contributor of the text and his or her context, rather than as a detector of the individual’s emotions. A case example shows the use of ETA, with the assistance of specific software, in analyzing the interviews of the inhabitants of a city suburb with respect to their expectations of fulfillment and development in relation to perceived local opportunities

La valutazione della genitorialità. una ricerca esplorativa, per capire come venga vissuta da un gruppo di cittadini romani

This paper reports the data of an exploratory research conducted with a group of Roman citizens who were asked what they thought about the possibility of assessing the parenting of families considered at risk over the parental expertise. Citizens were interviewed and the interviews were submitted to AET, Emotional Analysis of the Text. Assessing parenting often involves families with internal conflicts. We think the conflict is not only there. Conflicts also cross the theoretical, legal, and political hypotheses, which base the opportunity to intervene within the issues involved in parental evaluation. They are also found in the relationship between families and services. Legal and sociological literature advise the presence of these conflicts and discuss the issues; whereas the psychological and psychiatric one is focused on the application of techniques, whether they are evaluation, psychotherapy, re-education. This perspective does not consider the conflicting complexity which founds the parental evaluation, but it is focused only on the family. We were interested in analysing, in this context, what is the citizens’ perception of the evaluation of parenting, who are their potential customers and users; in particular, if and how these conflictual dynamics are perceived by them. After the analysis of the interview, the data outline three cultures. One proposes the traditional Italian family, the feminised family and designated to the care of members in difficulty within the home wall; family today in a strong crisis within processes of change. Another proposes the centrality of the court and the legal culture, founded on evaluations and resolving actions that often can result in child custody actions. These two cultures contrast: when the traditional family is missing, the court appears. There is no counseling which concerns the changes of the family. Psychological and neuropsychiatric counseling agencies do not appear in the data, except for social services, in any case subordinated to the court. A third culture proposes an “ideal” adult, who with balance and reflection skills, has to face a fearful context, but it is an isolated individual, without a relational context of reference. This culture seems to opposite the dissolution of relational contexts – state, organizations, family – to the idealized individual, self-determined and alone. The development of psychological function in the assessment of parenting concerns two aspects: the importance of studying the complexity of the social mandate and the intervention with the conflicting relationships of the family and of all the other actors involved

Introduction to Special Issue “Towards a psychology integrating low-power social groups such as migrants, elders, women, children, people with a diagnosis of disability or mental disorder”

Rivista di Psicologia Clinica (Journal of Clinical Psychology) is concerned with the issues of social coexistence by proposing a clinical psychological perspective which is attentive to the relationship between the individual and the context. In this journal issue we deal with social integration and principles organizing coexistence as well

La rappresentazione dell’Accoglienza presso un Centro di Salute Mentale romano a confronto con la rappresentazione dei Servizi di Salute Mentale in un gruppo di cittadini romani: Una ricerca intervento

In questa ricerca è stato intervistato un gruppo di cittadini romani, chiedendo quali attese abbiano verso i Servizi di Salute Mentale (SSM). Al tempo stesso sono stati intervistati tutti gli infermieri dell’Accoglienza, vista come funzione sintomatica del servizio nel suo complesso, di un Centro di Salute Mentale (CSM) romano, chiedendo come si rappresentano la domanda dei cittadini. Si volevano avere informazioni sulla relazione cittadini-SSM, che contribuissero a trattare le questioni dell’Accoglienza del CSM. Le interviste sono raccolte in due differenti corpus, Cittadini e Accoglienza, sottoposti ad Analisi Emozionale del Testo. In Cittadini c’è contrapposizione tra «più giovani» (sotto i 40) che parlano dell’identità dei SSM e non hanno una domanda sui loro problemi, e «più anziani» (sopra i 40), che hanno una domanda su una convivenza emarginante e violenta, con al centro i problemi dei giovani. Entro i «più anziani» c’è contrapposizione tra «femmine», che parlano della famiglia tradizionale in crisi, e «maschi», che parlano di un passaggio generazionale interrotto segnato dal potere del danaro e dalla desertificazione di risorse. Tutti gli intervistati chiedono ai SSM di incrementare la competenza relazionale delle persone. In Accoglienza c’è conflitto tra l’impossibile obbligo della giusta risposta “a tutti” e le domande dell’utenza percepite come “infinite” nella loro variabilità. Altre funzioni individuate sono quella di “filtro” che rimanda agli specialismi e i trattamenti medici di risoluzione delle crisi di un’utenza senza domanda, riferibile al malato psichiatrico grave. C’è anche una possibilità, minoritaria, di cogliere i problemi di convivenza indicati da Cittadini, in particolare quelli che nascono dalla crisi della famiglia, mentre non si vede quella del contesto sociale più ampio. In sintesi, la domanda dei cittadini è centrata su sistemi di relazione in crisi, l’offerta del CSM su interventi centrati sull’individuo; la ricerca ha avuto in conclusione fasi di restituzione dove queste posizioni sono state discusse sia con il CSM che con il Dipartimento di Salute Mentale in cui il servizio si colloca.In this research study a group of roman citizens was interviewed about their expectations toward Mental Health Services (MHSs). In addition, all the nurses working in the Reception Service (RS) – seen as a symptomatic function of the whole service – of a Mental Health Center (MHC) of Rome were interviewed about their representations of citizens’ demand. The aim was to gain some information on the citizens-MHS relationship in order to deal with issues taking place in the RS of MHC. Two different textual corpora were derived from interviews to citizens and RS workers, and were analyzed by Emotional Text Analysis. With regard to citizens, an opposition exists between younger people (aged under 40), who deal with the MHS identity without a specific demand toward it, and older ones (aged over 40), who deal with exclusion and violence in social coexistence, as well as problems of young people. With specific regard to older people an opposition exists between females, who deal with the crisis of traditional family, and males, who deal with the shift of generational change due to the increasing power of money and lack of resources. All respondents ask MHSs to improve relational competence of people. In RS there is a conflict between the impossible requirement of the right answer "to all" and users’ demands which are perceived as "infinite" in their variability. There is also a "filter" function characterized by specialisms and medical treatments oriented to resolve the crisis of users, such as the case of severe psychiatric patients. However, there is a little possibility to deal with the problems of coexistence indicated by citizens, particularly those due to the crisis of the family but not those deriving from the wider social context. In summary, citizens’ demand is centered on the relationship systems in crisis, while the supply of MHC interventions is focused on the individual. In the end stages of this research study these results were discussed with both the MHS and the Department of Mental Health in which the service was located

La disabilità nelle scuole superiori: L’assistenza specialistica come funzione integrativa

This paper deals with the report of a training intervention addressed to Specialist Assistants (SA) who care for students with disabilities in higher middle schools in Rome. The aim of the intervention was to develop SAs’ organizational competence, that is the competence to analyze their work context - including school, families, services - and emotional dynamics characterizing it, without relying on collusive actions but by pursuing an integration-oriented project. Keywords: specialist assistance; disability; school; inclusion; social integration

The failure of “traditional adult goals” for today’s young people: new cohabitations and new coexistences

By the term Millennials we indicate the ones who reach the status of young adult in the first part of the 21st century. In Italy, multiple indicators about employment or the availability of assets indicate a crisis for this generation. With regard to Millennials economists deal with the issue of “generational divide”, meaning that, also because of the wealth accumulated to their detriment and in an unproductive way by the generations of the current sixty and seventy years old people, they are condemned to delay indefinitely the pursuit of goals considered proper of adult age, such as to get married and have a home of their own. At the same time, the economic culture within which this forecast is made is in crisis. We explored the issue by assuming current youth cohabitations as a symptomatic event. We think they are indicative of ongoing changes: young people are mixed with the less young ones, students with workers, males with females, what is temporary can become permanent. We wondered how the current housemates experience cohabitation, and how much they are satisfied with it. In this regard, we interviewed a group of 46 people in Rome, both males and females, above and below the age of thirty, living together without family ties. The data results show that the so-called “adult goals” are not necessarily coveted, that new perspectives are outlined, and that respondents are satisfied with the experience of cohabitation

The representation of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdown in Italy: A psychosocial research by SPS, Studio di Psicosociologia of Rome

A fine febbraio 2020, in SPS4ci siamo chiesti quali fossero i vissuti evocati dalla pandemia Covid-19 in esordio, e quali fatti “derivassero” da tali vissuti. A tal fine abbiamo interpellato 419 persone, tra l’1 marzo e il 5 maggio 2020. Il corpus raccolto è stato analizzato con l’Analisi Emozionale del Testo (AET). Si ipotizzava che la pandemia avesse destrutturato le modalità abituali di rapporto, e pensavamo stessero emergendo dimensioni relazionali inedite. I nostri dati dicono che l’individualismo abituale, di avida competitività, è in crisi. In risposta alla destrutturazione dello schema relazionale amico/nemico, alla base della socialità, è emerso un nuovo individualismo. La rappresentazione del pericolo insito nel contagio pandemico ci ha reso, tutti, potenzialmente nemici gli uni degli altri. Tutti siamo vissuti come potenzialmente nemici di tutti, a meno di non essere dichiaratamente malati. I malati, di contro, non sono vissuti come nemici: sono un’alterità scissa, relegata in un altrove lontano da chi è “sano”. Le cure, nel lockdown, erano confinate nell’ospedale, caratterizzate dall’isolamento, dall’emergenza, dalla morte esperita nel peggiore dei modi. L’altrove è stato reificato in un ospedale diventato sintomatico del fallimento del sistema sanitario. Si è costituito un “noi” qui insieme, sani e maniacalmente felici, e un “loro”contagiati, dannati, isolati e “altrove”. Internet, consentendo vicinanza senza contatto, è diventata un nuovo contesto di socialità. Ha permesso di ridiventare umani, ovvero amici, a meno che non si dimostri il contrario. Ma la nuova amicalità è fondata sulla scissione dall’altro dannato: la coppia malato/curante, e tutti gli esclusi, per diverse motivazioni, dalla protezione del lockdown. Dalla nuova socialità è escluso anche il vissuto dello stare chiusi in casa con gli abituali conviventi, dove emerge la violenza delle relazioni familiari obbligate. Si evidenziano altri esclusi dal noi maniacalmente amicale: gli anziani che non usano internet e che più di tutti rischiano di morire. C’è poi una cultura che, entro il fallimento delle relazioni sociali abituali, sottolinea l’impotenza delle istituzioni (politiche, sanitarie, mediatiche etc.) nella contingenza pandemica. Infine, c’è una cultura pre-lockdown, fatta della paura che porterà a scegliere l’isolamento. Manca, nei dati, il mondo produttivo, che non ha ritrovato, per gli interpellati dalla ricerca –nel periodo di tempo da noi considerato –un codice emozionale condiviso che potesse raccogliersi in un cluster. La ricerca aveva anche un obiettivo di intervento: quello di creare un contesto in cui l’evento pandemia potesse essere interpretato, entro un setting di partecipazione. Oltre a effettuare una pubblicazione rapida dei dati, intendiamo promuovere gruppi di discussione su internet con i partecipanti. La creazione di un contesto di condivisione è anche un motivo dell’alto numero di Autori.At the end of February 2020, in SPS2we asked ourselves what were the experiences evoked by the Covid-19 pandemic in its debut, and what facts “derived”from these experiences. To this end, we interviewed 419 people, between 1 March and 5 May 2020. The collected corpus was analyzed through the Emotional Text Analysis (AET). It was assumed that the pandemic had deconstructed the usual ways of relating, and we thought that new relational dimensions were emerging. Our data show that habitual individualism, of greedy competitiveness, is in crisis. A new individualism has emerged in response to the deconstruction of the friend/foerelational schema, at the basis of sociality. The representation of the danger inherent in the pandemic contagion has made us all potentially enemies of each other. We have all lived as potentially enemies of all, unless we are admittedly sick. The sick, on the other hand, are not experienced as enemies: they are a split otherness, relegated to an elsewhere far from those who are “healthy”. Duringthe lockdown, treatments were confined to the hospital, characterized by isolation, emergency, death experienced in the worst way. The othernesswas reified in a hospital that became symptomatic of the failure of the health system. A “we”has formed here together, healthy and maniacally happy, and a “them”infected, damned, isolated and “elsewhere”. The Internet, by allowing contactless proximity, has become a new context of sociality. It has allowed us to become human again, or friends, unless proven otherwise. But the new friendship is based on the split from the damned other: the sick/caring couple, and all those excluded, for various reasons, from the protection of the lockdown. The experience of being closed at home with the usual cohabitants is also excluded from the new sociality, where the violence of forced family relationships emerges. There are others excluded from a maniacally friendlyus: the elderly who do not use the internet and who most of all risk dying. There is also a culture that, within the failure of habitual social relations, underlines the powerlessness of institutions (political, health, media, etc.) in the pandemic contingency. Finally, there is a pre-lockdown culture, made up of fear that will lead to chooseisolation. In the data, the productive world is missing, which for those interviewed by the research did not find -in the period of time we considered -a shared emotional code that could be gathered in a cluster. The research also had an intervention objective: to create a context in which the pandemicevent could be interpreted, within a setting of participation. In addition to publishing the data quickly, we intend to promote discussion groups onthe internet with participants. The creation of a sharing context is also areason for the high number of Author