Emanuela Coppola

La valutazione delle psicoterapie : un'introduzione

Le psicoterapie funzionano? Quando? Quali cambiamenti producono? I risultati sono stabili nel tempo? E ancora, cosa produce il cambiamento o la guarigione? Come avviene? L’articolo passa al vaglio questi e altri interrogativi relativi alla ricerca in psicoterapia. Il lavoro, in forma introduttiva, problematizza questioni stringenti che da anni animano il dibattito scientifico internazionale e propone un percorso di senso, supportato dalla letteratura sul tema, che consente di seguire i vettori epistemologici che hanno gradualmente intrecciato le esigenze della ricerca e quelle della pratica clinica. Dalle originarie divisioni tra psicoanalisti e sperimentalisti si giunge ad una fase attuale, di maggiore maturita, della ricerca in psicoterapia (process-outcome research) che studia la relazione tra cio che accade in terapia e il risultato della terapia stessa, privilegiando i trattamenti sul campo, per come essi vengono normalmente erogati nella pratica clinica routinaria (studi di effectiveness). Tra i risultati piu importanti di queste ricerche vi e la comprensione delle differenze sul piano patologico e strutturale di quadri diagnostici e il relativo adeguamento dei dispositivi cura.

Clinical Psychology and Research: epistemological notes

The paper proposes a reflection on the relationship between clinical psychology and research, highlighting the constant epistemological crossing the two practices, empirical and professional. The paper warns against the pitfalls of reductionism that, in both cases, may impact the effectiveness of therapeutic results. In fact, both in clinical practice and is in psychological research, the mere application of techniques contradicts the specificity of the object of study (the mind) which, rather, requires the constant attention to a complexity of variables and contextual elements essential for the understanding the psychic. Qualitative research has been a prolific space for dialogue and joint trials between research and clinical practice that has rehabilitated scientific dignity of affective and subjective for a long time confined to the ephemeral world of poetry and literature. It must therefore be a further extension of the convergence not only of qualitative and quantitative methods but also of training modules for researchers and practitioners are able to stimulate, in daily practice, confidence in the utility of scientific monitoring and detection of inter-subjective variables in research devices.

‘Ndrangheta and The Street: Experiential Group with Reggio Calabria Flying Squad Policemen

The Calabrian Mafia seems to be animated by a hunger for power with no precedent in other crime organizations, and an ability to hide its presence so much to make it an obvious and inevitable component of the decreed social system, deeply crept into the community cohabitation norms. In the study, we have aimed at investigating the Reggio Calabria flying squad policemens representations and lived experiences. The qualitative analysis of the text, carried out through dedicated software, has pointed out two super codes (aggression to social connections within solitude; no freedom encloses paranoia). In other words, “solitude” as lived experience is spatially contained in “aggression to connections” and “the absence of freedom” encloses the lived experience of constant and systematic danger (“paranoia”). This means that the emotional elaboration on Mafia, carried out during the group process, has highlighted thinking categories connected to the coercion of relational space which articulate themselves along the emotional dimensions of solitude and paranoid anguish. In our last working session, the participants revealed all their internal contradictions and the confusion ‘Ndrangheta causes in them, since on one hand they have to fight against it, and on the other they try to prevent it from affecting them, thus risking to escape not only the Mafia, but the relation they have with the world.

Abandon the coat Experiential group about clinical psychologist’s identity

This research was driven by the fundamental idea that one of the main methodological competencies of a psychologist is to be able to think one’s emotions (especially those formed within a relationship) and to use them to build theories on the relationship itself. In this context, the project aims to explore the role identity of the trainee psychologist, that is to say the mental representations (fantasies, subconscious associations, myths) of those who have just finished their university journey and are about to embark upon the world of work in the field of applied clinical psychology.