The permanence of the setting modifications adopted during the covid-19 pandemic in the clinical practice of Italian psychoanalysts.

The research aims to verify if the remote modality, introduced widely by Italian psychoanalysts at the lockdown, remains in clinical practice today, with specific reasons and characteristics. The authors hypothesize that the use of such modality, beyond health limitations, is a point of no return compared to the classical setting. Based on this hypothesis, an ad hoc online questionnaire was proposed; the subjects were also called upon to express an opinion on taleanalysis. Two hundred sixty-seven subjects responded. The results confirm a wide use of remote analysis even in the current situation; they also seem to indicate recognition by psychoanalysts of the emergence of new psychic phenomena in this type of setting, for example, childhood traumas that in the face-to-face analysis were unknown or inelaborate, usable in the treatment process.

A scoping review on innovative methods for personality observation.

Background: Personality's investigation has always been characterized as a central area of research for psychology, such that it was established in the 1920s as an autonomous scientific-disciplinary field. Identifying and observing the people's typical ways of "being in the world" has made possible to define the predictability of a pattern of behavioral responses related both to the possession of distinct characteristics of the agent subject and to specific environmental situations. In the actual scientific landscape, there is a strand of research that makes a description of personality through methodologies and indicators not usually used by psychology, but scientifically validated through standardized procedures. Such studies seem to be significantly increasing and reflect the emerging need to have to consider the human being in his or her complexity, whose existential and personal dimensions can no longer be traced to classification systems that are divorced from the epochal reference. Objective: In this review, attention is focused on highlighting publications in the literature that have included the use of unconventional methods in the study of nonpathological personality, based on the Big Five theoretical reference model. To better understand human nature, an alternative based on evolutionary and interpersonal theory is presented. Design: Online databases were used to identify papers published 2011-2022, from which we selected 18 publications from different resources, selected according to criteria established in advance and described in the text. A flow chart and a summary table of the articles consulted have been created. Results: The selected studies were grouped according to the particular method of investigation or description of personality used. Four broad thematic categories were identified: bodily and behavioral element; semantic analysis of the self-descriptions provided; integrated-type theoretical background; and use of machine learning methods. All articles refer to trait theory as the prevailing epistemological background. Conclusion: This review is presented as an initial attempt to survey the production in the literature with respect to the topic and its main purpose was to highlight how the use of observational models based on aspects previously considered as scientifically uninformative (body, linguistic expression, environment) with respect to personality analysis proves to be a valuable resource for drawing up more complete personality profiles that are able to capture more of the complexity of the person. What has emerged is a rapidly expanding field of study.

Exploring the Question: "Does Empathy Work in the Same Way in Online and In-Person Therapeutic Settings?"

Providing remote psychotherapy using technology is a growing practice, especially since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even if in numerous studies video conferencing psychotherapy (VCP) was found to be clinically effective, some doubts continue to exist about how the psychotherapeutic alliance works in the online setting, and the characteristics of the empathic process are still poorly understood. This is an exploratory study aimed at analyzing the degree of empathy between the psychotherapist and client pair, and the degree of support perceived by the client who shall be referred to as the patient interchangeably in this study, comparing the sessions in person with those online, during the current pandemic, in order to discriminate the impact of empathy in the digital setting. The sample analyzed was composed of 23 patients with different severity of pathology engaged in online and in-person therapeutic sessions with five psychotherapists of different theoretical leanings. The scores of the support and empathy scale, obtained by both members of the psychotherapeutic couple in the two settings, were analyzed and compared. The test used belongs to an Italian adaptation of the Empathic Understanding (EU) of the Relationship Inventory. What emerged from comparing the scores was interesting: Unlike the psychotherapists, the patients perceived their therapists as significantly more empathic and supportive in the remote setting. These are rather important data, because the literature documents that client empathic perception measures represent a more accurate measure of the empathic relationship and, in general, can predict a good treatment outcome. Although these results need further investigation, they represent an important contribution in filling the scientific gap in the understanding of digital empathy. Also, this study provides new insights for future research on the characteristics and impact empathy has on the practice of remote psychotherapy.

A sample of Italian psychotherapists express their perception and opinions of online psychotherapy during the covid-19 pandemic.

The covid-19 lockdown forced psychotherapists to use videoconferencing psychotherapy (VCP). There is little literature on the relationship between VCP and the theoretical orientation of the psychotherapist. The aim of our research work is to explore to what extent the Italian therapists used VCP and how they experienced the change in setting during lockdown. A sample of psychotherapists completed an on-line questionnaire including data about any previous experience of remote work, information on changes in setting during lockdown and their opinions on this experience. In the second phase, a statistical analysis of the data collected was performed with SPSS. The most represented theoretical orientations are psychoanalytic, Gestalt, systemic-relational and psychodynamic. Almost all the respondents had chosen to change the setting, opting for remote work via video calls, with no differences in terms of theoretical orientation and age group. Psychotherapeutic orientation seems to affect the type of difficulties encountered. The scientific literature on remote psychotherapy (VCP) so far does not correlate it with any specific theoretical-clinical model. Our research work offers some preliminary hypotheses about potential correlations between setting variations with the theoretical-clinical models.