Psychodynamic Psychopathology and Clinical Relationship in Developmental age and Adulthood

General aims The course aims at providing the students with theoretical and practical abilities that would them help deepen diagnostic queries during infancy, in the light of the psychodynamic theories of Developmental Psychopathology, the empirical evidence resulting from Infant Research, and the current International Diagnostic Classification Systems. During the Course, the most relevant clinical syndromes in children will be illustrated, taking into account the influence of Infant Research on diagnostic assessment as well as the role of early clinical interventions (particularly, the Home-visiting interventions) aimed at pre-venting or reducing psychopathological risk during infancy. The expected outcomes would be: competent and critical comprehension of the clinical disorders during infancy, within a transactional developmental perspective that stresses the role of both risk and protec-tive factors on children’s development; knowledge of the diagnostic classification systems, as well as of their revisions in response to emerging clinical and empirical evidence; competent and critical com-prehension of the psychodynamic constructs that guide early preventive interventions in the field of psychopathological and psychosocial risk. The traditional lessons will provide the students with the comprehension of psychodynamic theories about typical and psychopathological development during infancy, through the presentation of several clinical vignettes specific for psychopathological conditions. The Laboratory lessons will provide the students with hand-on opportunities to assess parents-child re-lationship, by means of multiple observational sources that will include: the quality of parents-child nar-ratives; the affect regulatory processes between parents and child; the emotional-adaptive functioning in parents and child; the possible presence of early aversive and/or traumatic experiences in parents. These aspects will be investigated through self-report instruments, as well as by means of mother-child and father-child audio-recorded dialogues. Specific aims Knowledge and understanding Passing the exam would imply being capable of understanding and classifying clinical disorders during infancy, taking into account the psychodynamic perspective of Developmental Psychopathology. Applying knowledge and under-standing Passing the exam would imply mastering the multi-axial assessment instruments that are generally ap-plied to evaluate the quality of parents-child relationship; students would also master how to delineate a profile of the family emotional-adaptive functioning, that characterize both typical and psychopatho-logical development during infancy. Making judgements Passing the exam would imply mastering the ability to comprehend the complex factors that delineate the psychopathological risk during the development, by detecting the presence of early problematic signals within parents-child relationship. During the Course, such abilities will be supported through the presentation of video-recorded parents-child interactions and clinical vignettes, that will allow discus-sions and active participation of the students. Communication skills Passing the exam would attest that students master ability to use the psychodynamic and diagnostic terminology. These abilities would be attained - during the traditional lessons – by emphasizing and in-stantiating the use of psychodynamic, clinical and scientific terminology, and – during the Laboratory lessons – by discussions with the students about the possible problems related to the administration and scoring of the proposed instruments. Learning skills Passing the exam would attest the ability to learn the theoretical constructs of Developmental Psycho-pathology; such abilities would allow students to deepen conceptual-applicative principles of diagnostic process and of the early preventive intervention, during their academic and professional lives. During the traditional lessons such abilities would be transmitted by emphasizing the role of theoretical, clinical and empirical contributions on which the assessment of typical and psychopathological development is based; during the Laboratory session, such abilities would be supported by providing the student s with the opportunity to assess parents-child relationship, using clinical instruments whose validity has been largely documented in the field of scientific community. Prerequisites To more adequately digest the materials provided during the course and the to take full advantage of the study of the books proposed, it’s important for students students to have an adequate knowledge of psychodynamic developmental theories. If the students could not attend the lessons, such prelimi-nary knowledges will allow the students to fully acquire the notions of the Course with the soley aid of the handbooks as well as of the didactic materials which will be made available by the Professor.