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The possible positive consequences of trauma and its relationship to existential aspects are receiving increasing attention. However, little is known about how young individuals perceive the changed status of these profound aspects of their lives. This study aimed to explore and identify the themes of the possible positive aspects of trauma-related suffering, the most meaningful moments, and the perception of meaning realization in young individuals. A total of 139 trauma-exposed Mexican university students responded to a survey consisting of open-ended questions survey. Qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis. The main benefits of suffering were a better attitude towards life, more maturity and strength, new capabilities, and a reorganization of values, purposes, and beliefs. In reference to significant moments, the themes of the importance of bonds with significant people, spiritual moments, and personal achievements emerged. Both meaning realization and existential frustration were observed. Meaning was mainly oriented towards career goals, other people, personal growth, and financial goals. Findings suggested several patterns of existential concerns for Mexican university students. Both personal and interpersonal levels were cited as pivotal aspects for the transformation of young people after trauma. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Although 3-year-old children sometimes simulate emotions to adapt to social norms, we do not know if even younger children can pretend emotions in playful contexts. The present study investigated (1) what emotions infants of 1-2 years old are capable of pretending and (2) the possible role of language and symbolic play in the ability to pretend emotions. The sample included 69 infants aged 18 to 31 months and their parents. Infants were administrated the Test of Pretend Play, and their parents responded to the MacArthur-Bates CDI-II inventory, part of the MacArthur-Bates CDI-I, and a questionnaire about the expression of pretend emotions. Results suggest that very young children simulate emotions. Furthermore, children's simulation of emotions was related to both symbolic play and language. Specifically, the ability to label emotions was linked to the ability to simulate them. The role of language and symbolic play in the development of the capacity to express and understand pretend emotions is discussed Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional, Grant/Award Number: PSI2015-69419-R Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Wiley

It is particularly important to study the underlying processes of the dysfunctional personality patterns and of antisocial behaviour in the prison population, to identify them and to analyse the functioning of the psychological mechanisms involved in these constructs. The main goal of this study was to analyse dysfunctional personality patterns, Dark Triad, moral disengagement mechanisms and their relationship with violence and recidivism. Participants were 63 incarcerated offenders in two prisons. The study found a higher degree of moral disengagement in the participants convicted for crimes involving the use of violence. The results indicated that antisocial and aggressive-sadistic tendencies were the dysfunctional personality traits most strongly associated with moral disengagement. The binary logistic regression analysis showed that the variables, which influenced recidivism in criminal behaviour, were the use of violence in the crime committed, antisocial personality traits, and advantageous comparison and dehumanisation as mechanisms of moral disengagement.

This study aims to explore and analyze the associations among posttraumatic symptoms, meaning in life dimensions, and perceived family functioning in trauma-exposed university students.Participants (Outcomes indicated several negative associations between posttraumatic symptoms and both meaning in life and family functioning areas.These findings suggest family functioning and meaning-in-life clinical practical relevance concerning the assessment, prevention, and intervention in persons affected by trauma. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Trauma may lead to different psychological changes, both detrimental or beneficial. This study aimed to a better understanding of these consequences by exploring the relations between traumatic exp...

Resilience may be related to mental health and profound beliefs and attitudes. Utilizing a survey design, we examined relationships among resilience, clinical syndromes, death attitudes, and religion. Mexican university students (N = 161) answered a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Global Post-Traumatic Stress Scale, the Millon Multiaxial Inventory, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and the Death Attitudes Profile. Pearson correlation analyses showed that resilience correlated inversely with clinical syndromes and fear of death and positively with approach acceptance. Religion entailed higher death attitudes and resilience. Regression analysis revealed that lower anxiety, alcohol use, persistent depression, and higher delusion and death approach acceptance explained resilience.

This study aims to further understand children's capacity to identify and reason about pretend emotions by analyzing which sources of information they take into account when interpreting emotions simulated in pretend play contexts. A total of 79 children aged 3 to 8 participated in the final sample of the study. They were divided into the young group (ages 3 to 5) and the older group (6 to 8). The children were administered a facial emotion recognition task, a pretend emotions task, and a non-verbal cognitive ability test. In the pretend emotions task, the children were asked whether the protagonist of silent videos, who was displaying pretend emotions (pretend anger and pretend sadness), was displaying a real or a pretend emotion, and to justify their answer. The results show significant differences in the children's capacity to identify and justify pretend emotions according to age and type of emotion. The data suggest that young children recognize pretend sadness, but have more difficulty detecting pretend anger. In addition, children seem to find facial information more useful for the detection of pretend sadness than pretend anger, and they more often interpret the emotional expression of the characters in terms of pretend play. The present research presents new data about the recognition of negative emotional expressions of sadness and anger and the type of information children take into account to justify their interpretation of pretend emotions, which consists not only in emotional expression but also contextual information This study was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (PSI2015-69419-R; MINECO-FEDER). Funds for open access were from Department of Psychology, University of Girona, Spain

Background: There are no studies to date which have examined complicated grief (CG) symptomatology in substance use disorder (SUD) populations specifically. This study aimed to determine if the pre...

In the present chapter, we focused on the relationship between bereavement and addiction, specifically among those patients who have a diagnosis of substance use disorder. Although bereavement research has advanced greatly in recent years, there are few studies on bereavement among the drug-dependent population. The substance use disorder population often report life stories marked by painful experiences and loss. Different studies have remarked on the relationship between bereavement and substance use. Highlighting the possible relationship between the loss of a significant person and a substance use disorder could help to build a theoretical background as well as to improve the dishabituation treatment in addiction centers

Background: Research has shown that suicide is a highly present phenomenon among the drug dependent population. Moreover, individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) present high psychopathological comorbidity. This study aimed to describe which clinical syndromes are linked to the presence of risk of suicide. Methods: The study was based on a consecutive non-probabilistic convenience sample of 196 patients who attended the Public Addiction Center in Girona (Spain). Sociodemographic data, as well as suicide risk and drug related characteristics, were recorded. The risk of suicide was assessed with the Spanish version of &ldquo, risk of suicide&rdquo, Complicated grief was assessed with the Spanish version of the Inventory of Complicated Grief. Clinical syndromes were measured with the Spanish version of MCMI-III. Results: The syndromes most frequently associated with the presence of risk of suicide were complicated grief, major depression and thought disorder. Conclusions: Different psychopathological syndromes were identified in relation to risk of suicide among patients with SUD. The present results highlight the importance of accurately diagnosing those individuals.

Exposure to traumatic events or adverse experiences and its consequences have been studied mainly from a posttraumatic stress disorder perspective. Existential psychotherapy focuses on universal hu...

The feeling of hopelessness is one of the main risk factors in suicidal behaviour, a clinical symptom of depression and a factor of great etiological relevance in hopelessness depression. With the aim of contributing data relative to the levels of hopelessness in the general population, this study has been made with three objectives in mind: to determine the levels of hopelessness in a university population, to analyse the relationship of hopelessness with the process of adapting to university and, finally, to analyse the relationships between hopelessness, depression, psychopathology and suicidal ideation. A total of 1277 first- and second-year students, from different faculties and degree courses, participated voluntarily in this investigation. The results obtained indicate that 13.9% of the students present moderate or severe levels of hopelessness. The students with greater levels of hopelessness are dissatisfied with different aspects of university life, spend less time on extracurricular educational activities and are less likely to go to examinations. Also, the relationship between hopelessness, depression and suicidal ideation is once again clearly seen. The results suggest the need to develop some type of programme or service for the university community which could influence the mood of students and modify their expectations with the aim of preventing suicidal behaviour and improving their adaptation to university life and, consequently, their academic performance.

Despite the controversy generated by the conceptualization of personality disorders, it is well established that the inflexibility of coping styles and dysfunctional behaviors associated with them can lead to a considerable impairment in interpersonal relationships. Although communication is one of the most important processes in relating to others, few empirical studies have been undertaken on the influence of dysfunctional personality patterns on communication styles, which is the main objective of the present cross-sectional study. A total of 529 Spanish university students were assessed using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory III (MCMI-III), Millon, Davis, and Millon, 1997, and the Communicator Style Measure (Norton, 1978). Results show statistically significant relationships between different personality patterns and styles of communication and suggest that narcissistic, histrionic and compulsive patterns are related to positive communication styles in a non-clinical sample. The implications of this study are discussed.

This paper presents an approach to adapt a playful space and an organizational space in Learning Management Systems to support virtual learning in adults with ADHD. The playful space consists of an adaptive videogame and some computer exercises that attempt to train cognitive areas deficient in people with ADHD, providing at the same time a strategy to motivate students. The organizational space attempts to facilitate students' work by presenting organized folders to remind them of the status of their tasks. These spaces will be automatically adapted according to each student's ADHD symptomatic profile inferred by a user modeling approach. This user modelling considers four user characteristics, which can also be used as variables in different contexts. These variables are: behavioral management, cognitive performance, emotional recognition, and emotional regulation. To infer the ADHD symptomatic profile of students and their emotional alterations, these features are used as input in a set of classification rules. The proposed user model provides the information to adapt the workspace of students with attention problems, specifically adult students with ADHD.

Introduction. It has been suggested that evidence of developmental disturbance of cognition and lateralisation in schizophrenia can be best understood from the perspective of developmental stability (DS), an indicator of the extent to which an individual develops according to a specified ontogenic programme in the presence of environmental noise. Higher levels of fluctuating asymmetry (FA; the difference between right and left side of a quantitative morphological trait such as dermatoglyphics) are thought to reflect less DS. We examined this issue for dimensions of schizotypy. Methods. Associations between FA, measures of laterality and cognitive function on the one hand, and negative and positive dimensions of schizotypy on the other, were examined in a sample of 260 healthy adolescents aged 11.9–15.6 years. FA was measured as a–b ridge count right–left differences. Neuropsychological measures yielded a general cognitive ability score and a frontal function score. Laterality was assessed with the Annett scale. Results. Measures of psychosis proneness were normally distributed. Negative schizotypy was associated with more FA and lower general cognitive ability in a dose–response fashion. The association with FA was more apparent in boys. No associations existed with laterality or frontal function. Conclusion. The negative dimension of schizotypy may be associated with early developmental instability, resembling the pattern seen in the negative symptom dimension of schizophrenia. Measures of fluctuating asymmetry may be more sensitive with regard to the schizotypy phenotype than measures of laterality.

The main goal of this study was to examine the performance on frontal lobe tests of normal adolescent subjects and subjects psychometrically denned as schizotypics using double criteria: (1) a CPT-linked attention deficit vulnerability and (2) a psychosis proneness measured with the Chapman's perceptual aberration scale (PAS) and the social anhedonia scale (SAS). Frontal lobe performance was assessed with the Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST), the trail-making test (TMT) and a word generation test. Overall, results show that subjects with both a CPT-linked vulnerability and a psychosis proneness did worse than the rest of subjects in most frontal lobe tests, suggesting the existence of a subtle frontal-lobe dysfunction in ‘normal’ adolescents that are at increased risk for schizophrenia. Our results agree with current theories that hypothesize a possible frontal-limbic dysfunction latent in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The importance of an accurate definition of schizotypy, the specificity of the instruments and new approaches to the study of schizotypy are discussed.