Applied Dynamic and Clinical Psychology

General aims. The general aims of the present course are the study of theoretical and diagnostic approaches to infant mental health, with a particular focus on the psychodynamic perspective. Following studies on the infant-caregiver relationship - the primary focus of assessment - and caregiving contexts, the perspective of developmental psychopathology, the most important diagnostic approaches and specific clinical disorders will be studied in depth. Specific aims Knowledge and understanding Students are expected to achieve the following knowledge and understanding: - the contribution of infant research to the understanding of infant mental health; - the processes involved in attuned interaction in the caregiving context, starting from the antenatal period; - the Developmental Psychopathology guidelines; - the role of the relational framework and caregiving context on infant development; - the importance of early experiences for the developing person; - risk and protective factors impact on developmental trajectories; - the most important diagnostic manuals and procedures, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses; - the most important developmental disruptions and disorders in infant mental health; - a multifactorial understanding of disorders, in line with a biopsychosocial understanding of develomental disruptions and psychopathology. Applying knowledge and understanding The students are expected to achieve the following ability to: - use a developmental relational perspective on assessment and diagnosis in infant mental health; - take into account the multiplicity and multifactorial nature of psychopathological disorders and the different developmental pathways; - mastery of the most important diagnostic systems; - reflect critically on the main diagnostic manuals and procedures; - recognize and distinguish the main criteria that guide the diagnosis of developmental disruptions and psy-chopathology in infant mental health. Making judgments Students are expected to achieve the ability to integrate knowledge and manage complexity, as well as to formulate hy-potheses in understanding the developmental pathways, taking into account developmental and contextual processes at the origins and course of the most important developmental disruptions and disorders in child mental health. Communication skills Students are expected to acquire the specific language for describing basic psychopathological and clinical phenomena in child mental health field. Learning skills By the end of the course, the student will have acquired a good degree of autonomy in critically understanding of diag-nostic systems concerning child mental health and in reading the most important developmental psychopathological phenomena. Prerequisites To be able to understand the different disorders and ethiopathological processes described within the course, it is ad-visable to knowledge the psychodynamic psychopathology.