The Empowerment & Boundaries Assessment (EBA) is a 25-item self-report instrument designed to assess boundary-setting and empowerment across emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and social domains in victims of narcissistic abuse. This study presents the standardization of the EBA, including reliability and validity analyses. A sample of 320 adult participants (210 men, 110 women) who self-identified as having experienced narcissistic abuse in intimate relationships completed the EBA, along with established psychological measures including the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) and a structured personality disorder assessment. Results demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .92), good test–retest reliability over four weeks (r = .87), and strong construct validity through factor analysis confirming four boundary domains. Convergent validity was supported by significant correlations with emotional distress (negative correlations with depression, anxiety, and stress) and discriminant validity was established by low overlap with unrelated constructs (e.g., social desirability). The EBA performed comparably to widely used tools such as the DASS-21 and IPDE, while filling a unique niche in measuring boundary functioning specific to narcissistic abuse survivors. The findings support the EBA as a reliable and valid tool for both clinical and research purposes.
This narrative review on current literature on parenting is focused primarily on the emotions and behaviors of the parents. The emotions include marital satisfaction, mentalization, stress, depression, and burnout. The behaviors include conflict during parent-child interactions, phubbing by parents and parents’ controlling, authoritarian and harsh parenting behavior. The negative outcomes for youth include smartphone addiction, depressive symptoms, externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Most of the data were reported by parents of children. Only a few studies were focused on adolescents or parents of adolescents. Methodological limitations of this literature include parent retrospective reports with potential recall bias and cross-sectional data, limiting any conclusions about directionality.
I find, based on intuitively observing myself and other people, that the best kind of creative insight, inspiration, and productive performance, in any field of endeavor, comes from communing deeply with other life presences, in heartfelt, open-minded, responsively caring, empathic attunement with them.
Psychotropic medications are commonly prescribed to adolescents with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), despite limited disorder-specific evidence and the increased vulnerability of this group to adverse and paradoxical reactions. Inspired by presentations and debates at the International Conference on FASD, organized by the Santa Casa- Health Department of the Pontifical Delegation of Loreto-Italy (Dipartimento Sanitario “Santa Casa” della Delegazione Pontificia di Loreto), this article emphasizes the need for clearer, ethically grounded tapering strategies. Patterns of polypharmacy, inconsistent clinical responses, and iatrogenic effects underscore the urgency of creating structured tapering guidelines and protocols based on developmental, relational, and cultural factors. Drawing on clinical experience in Italy and the United States—including work within Native American communities where structural inequities amplify the consequences of pharmacological overreliance—the article presents a tapering model that integrates neurodevelopmental vulnerability, environmental stability, relational continuity, and cultural context. Tapering is reframed as a therapeutic process aimed at restoring autonomy, reducing exposure to unnecessary medications, and strengthening the individual’s relational and cultural resources. The discussion emphasizes the importance of understanding behavioral changes from a neurodevelopmental perspective, fostering collaboration among caregivers, educators, and community resources, and addressing systemic pressures that contribute to medication overuse. The article concludes by stressing the need for long-term pilot studies to evaluate the practicality and impact of this framework in different settings. Such research will be essential for refining tapering strategies that are aligned with current neurodevelopmental stages, ethical standards, and community-based psychosocial and recovery models.
In this narrative review, summaries are given of research published in 2024 on internet addiction in adults. The papers are focused on the prevalence of internet addiction, negative effects, comorbidities, predictors/risk factors, mechanisms and buffers. The prevalence of internet addiction ranged from 21-76% across cultures as well as within and across professions and by severity. The negative effects included depression, pain, and sleep problems. The comorbidities include anxiety, PTSD and ADHD. The predictors/risk factors can be categorized as personality characteristics, family problems, fear of missing out, and emotional disorders. The potential underlying biological mechanisms for internet addiction include dysfunction in multiple regions of the brain and the serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitter systems. The buffers include being married and belonging to an extended family. Surprisingly, online photography was the only intervention that appeared in this current literature. Methodological limitations include most of the studies being cross-sectional and the samples being almost exclusively young adults.
