Influence of Communicative Openness on the Psychological Adjustment of Internationally Adopted Adolescents.

This study evaluated the predictive relationship between the communicative openness and psychological adjustment of adopted adolescents, controlling for preplacement risk factors. One hundred Spanish international adoptees aged 12-18 took part in the study. Data were gathered with a structured interview, the Youth Self Report and the Adoption Communication Scale. A history of maltreatment prior to the adoption was associated with more closed communication between parents and children. Prenatal drug exposure shows a relationship with the presence of externalizing behaviors and attention problems in adolescents. Finally, a lower degree of communicative openness regarding the child's origins was significantly associated with the presence of all the adolescent behavioral problems studied.

Los padres de adolescentes adoptados en el trabajo clínico. Fantasías, inquietudes y conflictos / Parents of adopted adolescents in clinical work: Fantasies, worries, and conflicts

El adolescente adoptado vive con mayor inquietud y complejidad la crisis propia de esta etapa. Se le hace presente su genética y su diferencia racial, se le aparecen fantasías e identificaciones con sus padres biológicos y con los adoptivos, e interrogantes acerca de su historia previa a la adopción y acerca del sentido de su presencia en la familia. Por otro lado a los padres se les pueden despertar duelos no resueltos, fantasías e inquietudes que contribuyen a que los conflictos se encallen y entren en una escalada de tensión. Entonces padres e hijos pueden irse alejando y poner en riesgo el vínculo filial. Será importante que los profesionales ayudemos a los padres a dar significado a las conductas de los hijos, a mentalizar, para que aguanten, contengan i acompañen a su hijo/a en los conflictos y dolor que ahora revive, y le ayuden así a la resolución de la crisis adolescente

The adopted adolescent lives through the crisis proper to this vital stage with more worry and complexities. His genetics and race differences appear to him, coupled with fantasies and identifications with his/her biological parents and with the adoptive ones, and interrogation points appear about his history previous to adoption, together with the ones that have to do with the sense of his presence in the family. On the other side, unresolved bereavements of the parents can be awaken in them; fantasies and worries that contribute to the conflicts get stuck and tension increases gradually. Parents and children can get distanced and the parental-filial bond be put under risk. It will be of importance that as professionals we help the parents to give sense and signification to the behaviour of the children, and to mentalise, so that they can hold, contain and accompain their son/daughter in the conflicts and pain that he/she is now reviving and help them in this way to the resolution of adolescent crisis

El trato con el conflicto, agresividad y violencia en la escuela: de la normalidad a la patología / Conflict management, aggressiveness and violence in schools: From normality to pathology

En este artículo se pretende ilustrar un aspecto del trabajo como psicóloga en una escuela. Se destaca la importancia de formar equipo con los docentes y atender las distintas dificultades de relación que se evidencian en el marco escolar, con el objetivo de promover dinámicas constructivas. Se muestra el valor de la detección del conflicto y su encauzamiento en edades tempranas como factor de prevención de situaciones que en el futuro pueden generar violencia, en una gradación desde la normalidad hasta la patología (AU)

This paper illustrates an aspect of the work of a School psychologist. The importance of teaming up with the teaching staff and taking care of the diverse relational problems emerging within the school framework are underlined, with the objective of promoting constructive dynamics. The value of conflict detection and its channeling form early ages onwards (in a gradation ranging from normality to pathology) is considered a preventive factor of situations that could generate violence in the future (AU)