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A psychodynamic profile at the origin of anorexia was described. In order to provide reliability to the considerations presented, the work made use of a sample of anorexic and depressed patients compared with controls, to whom a series of statistically processed personality tests were administered. This methodology brought to light that anorexic profile originated in childhood (adverse attitudes enacted by the personality of parental figures), interpreted by the child as a refusal of her own (fat) corporeity and the tendency to process information, express emotions and affections, react and act accordingly. These traits characterize the nascent personality and become apparent in adolescence (disesteem, insecurity, immaturity, social isolation, and sexual issues). Therefore, clinical work on the personality and anorexic behavior should aim at understanding the meanings attributed to the food and the body to initiate a correction and change. Such an intervention would tend to facilitate a gradual change in the original feeling and thinking of these dimensions in anorexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the most disturbing political question seems to be of a psychodynamic nature: what occupies the minds of individuals and society in general, other than a wealth of contradictions and a great emptiness? The accumulation of insensitivity and cruelty towards the world and towards oneself seems to be shaping up as the biggest problem facing this new century.To this end, the present study lays out an innovative psychodynamic reading of the political and cultural attitude of populism. The phenomenon is herein analyzed using a psychodynamic perspective, which will enable us to deduce just how such an orientation, in its phenomenological aspects, lends itself to fundamentalist connotations typical of saturated thought. If it can be said that the individual often acts in a manner that seeks to consciously utilize reason and emotion through the intermediary of the Ego, the masses tend to act impulsively and without any conscious awareness of their actions, on the basis of unmediated instinctual drives. Understanding the unconscious dynamics that underlie the attitudes and behaviors which the general population assumes in the face of crises, social emergencies, diversity, economics, and ecology is an essential step towards developing sustainable, concrete solutions at the psychological, social, and political levels, precisely by taking as a starting point a profound awareness of the psychodynamic mechanisms which dictate the orientation of the perception of reality and the resulting decision-making process.

The purpose of the article is to present a literature review regarding mechanical restraint in psychiatry. The main area of analysis is directed at the untitethical relationship between "restraint" and "containment", in the light of legal, ethical, medical and psychodynamic factors, in specific the concept of "setting". The ensuing assumption is that "mechanical restraint" constitutes "breach" of "setting"; namely, it is considered to be "non-treatment", "malpractice" and "maltreatment". The concept of "restraint" is given an operational definition, in contrast with that of "containment", and is stated as the distancing of the therapeutists from the patient with consequential damage to the therapeutic relationship. An alternative to restraint can be found by training the group of therapeutists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the psychoanalyst Giovanni Jervis' views on studying complex themes such as human identity, consciousness and motivation, which led him to deal with contributions from different fields of contemporary psychological knowledge, particularly from cognitive sciences, personality and social psychology and developmental observations should get along in a broader theoretical framework labeled as "dynamic psychology".

This contribution is concerned with methodological aspects and some psychometric results at the basis of the validation of a questionnaire for the facilitation of diagnosis according to Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) (PDM Task Force 2006). This assessment procedure system is the QFM-27, clinician report questionnaire on Mental Functioning and on levels of personality organization: it is structured on 27 items that articulate the nine dimensions of M axis of PDM by crossing them with the three levels of development and organization of personality conceptualized by PDM and operationalized in the following way: - Level of resources/means, supporting development, integration and healthy organization; - Level of conflicts, contributing to neurotic organization; - Level of dissociative traumatic processes, involving a disorganizing deficiency, contributing to range of borderline organization. QFM System aims to make operative some PDM diagnosis aspects about the Mental Functioning Profile (M Axis) according to what PDM's Authors argue on the relationship between M Axis and the formulation of some hypotheses on personality organization. It is possible to find the QFM system at the website www.pdm-qfm.com [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an introduction to the current issue of the journal, focusing on Giovanni Jervis(1933-2009), a prominent figure in the Italian intellectual landscape of the last fifty years. A student of the philosopher-ethnologist Ernesto De Martino, the main focus of his research was on social psychiatry and psychology, the foundations of psychology (especially of the psychodynamic theories), and the psychological aspects of social and political problems. Jervis was a Professor at La Sapienza University in Rome