Introduction
The study “LTP used as a psychodiagnostic and therapeutic tool for psychiatric children and adolescents” is part of a
Neuropsychiatric Unit project (NPU), aiming to find out significant relationships between children psychopathology and interactive
families pattern in order to set up a functional therapeutic intervention.
Method
The target group evaluated by the NPIA was composed of 20 families with school-age children. During the evaluation
psychodiagnostic assessment the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL, Achenbach 2000-2001) and the LTP (Fivaz-Depeursinge and
Corboz-Warnery, 1999) were administered. In order to test the hypothesis we have made the following statistical analysis: a) LTP score
flow (during the different phases) comparison between the clinical-borderline and non-clinical CBCL groups (generalized linear model).
b) parental LTP variable scores (in each phases) comparison between clinical-borderline and non-clinical CBCL groups (t-test for
independent groups). c) correlations between LTP and CBCL scores.
Results
Statistical differences both in LTP scores flow and in LTP variables scores in each part between clinical-borderline and non-
clinical CBCL groups only in some specific psychopathological areas (attention, social and total problems, externalizing, anxious-
depressed, withdrawn-depressed and somatic complaints). It is interesting that these differences are due to some of the LTP variables concerning parental abilities (co-construction, scaffolding, conflict and interferences, affective warmth, validation, activities errors).
Finally better parental abilities in LTP affective warmth and validation, activities errors, parental support, scaffolding and co-construction
are related to elevated scores in somatic complaints, total and social problems or viceversa (positive correlations).
Conclusions
These results indicated a relationship between psychopathological children symptoms and parental abilities to manage
triadic interactions supporting recent developmental theories which stressed the importance to involve the global family system in
diagnostic assessment in order to propose an intervention that could best fit to the patient family context
