Time attitudes reflect how individuals feel about their past, present, and future, and are linked to psychological and academic well-being. Theoretical contributions and empirical evidence suggest that feelings toward time are modifiable by interventions. However, the long-term impact of interventions on time attitudes remains unexplored. In this study, we examined the effect of a college counseling intervention on time attitudes, measured by the Adolescent and Adult Time Inventory-Time Attitude Scale. Participants consisted of 89 college students (Mage = 22.67; SD = 3.15) who underwent a 4-session psychodynamic counseling intervention. They were assessed at four time points: T0 (intake), T1 (one month after intake but before the intervention), T2 (at the end of the 4-session intervention), and T3 (three months after the intervention). Changes in time attitudes over time were analyzed using linear mixed models, controlling for age and gender. Results revealed an increase in positive attitudes toward the present and future, and a decrease in negative attitudes toward the present, both at T2 and T3. No changes were observed in attitudes toward the past or negative future attitudes. These findings suggest that psychodynamic counseling leads to long term improvements in college students' feelings toward the present and future. This supports its role in promoting psychological well-being and academic retention.

Study 1 involved 279 university students who completed the EAC-B at baseline and measures of working alliance and psychological distress after the intervention. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA), together with reliability and predictive validity analyses, supported a two-factor structure - Counselor Expertise and Personal Commitment - which explained 40.9% of the variance. Both factors showed excellent internal consistency. Personal commitment significantly predicted all components of the working alliance (goals, tasks, bond) and greater reduction in psychological distress, indicating its central role in the effectiveness of brief counseling. Counselor expertise predicted only the bond dimension of the working alliance and was not related to decreased distress. Study 2, conducted on 315 students, examined the refined version of the 48-item scale. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) replicated the two-factor solution with satisfactory fit indices. Overall, the results provide strong evidence for the psychometric validity of the Italian EAC-B and highlight personal commitment as the most robust predictor of alliance quality and counseling outcomes. Assessing expectations at intake may therefore be a valuable component in optimizing engagement and effectiveness in short-term university counseling interventions.

University counseling services are increasingly recognized as effective interventions for promoting students' psychological well-being, yet the psychological mechanisms underlying their effectiveness are still poorly understood. The present study examined the role of epistemic stances (epistemic trust, mistrust, and credulity) and therapeutic alliance in predicting changes in psychological distress among students undergoing a brief psychodynamic counseling intervention. The sample included 93 university students who participated in a brief psychodynamic counseling intervention consisting of four sessions and a 3-month follow-up. Data were analyzed using hierarchical linear mixed-effects models. Psychological distress was assessed using the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) at pre-treatment (T1), post-intervention (T2), and follow-up (T3). Epistemic stances were measured with the Epistemic Trust, Mistrust, and Credulity Questionnaire (ETMCQ) at T1, and therapeutic alliance was assessed at T2 with the Working Alliance Inventory - Short Form Revised (WAI-SR). Psychological distress significantly decreased from pretreatment to post-intervention and remained stable at follow-up. Higher baseline epistemic trust predicted lower levels of distress, whereas higher epistemic mistrust and credulity were associated with poorer outcomes. A stronger therapeutic alliance was associated with lower distress levels. Moreover, the therapeutic alliance moderated the relationship between epistemic mistrust and psychological distress, such that higher alliance was associated with lower distress. Findings suggest that both epistemic stances and the therapeutic alliance contribute to counseling effectiveness. A strong alliance may partially buffer the negative impact of epistemic mistrust, highlighting the importance of fostering a mentalizing environment in brief counseling interventions.

University students often face significant mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression. Counseling services have emerged as effective tools to address these issues. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a university counseling program using the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) over four measurement points: intake, pre-intervention, post-intervention, and follow-up. The current study is a quasi-experimental design, specifically a one-group interrupted time series and included 86 Italian students, predominantly female, with an average age of 22.37 years. Results from linear mixed models revealed significant improvements in total CORE-OM scores and its subscales post-intervention, with sustained gains at follow-up. Notably, psychodynamic counseling reduced general distress, psychological symptoms (such as anxiety and depression), and functional impairments while enhancing subjective well-being. Findings confirmed the absence of significant effects during the waiting period, supporting the intervention's specific effectiveness. Counseling outcomes were consistent across counselors, suggesting that standardized training and supervision contributed to intervention quality. While well-being and symptom reduction were maintained, functional improvements showed slight variations, potentially reflecting relational challenges associated with session closure. Limitations include the reliance on self-reported measures and a homogeneous sample, indicating a need for diverse populations and mixed assessment methods in future research.

Time attitudes refer to positive and negative feelings towards past, present, and future, and have been associated with both healthful and maladaptive psychological variables in adolescents and adults. Recent studies showed that university counseling services act as a strategic resource in decreasing students’ distress and promoting their health in a key development stage. However, the way in which these interventions can influence the time attitudes of students who turn to a university counseling service is still unknown. In the present work, we aimed to investigate the effect of a psychodynamic counseling intervention in changing time attitudes, as measured by the Adolescent and Adult Time Inventory - Time Attitude Scale, in a sample of 111 university students who constituted the clinical group and received counseling compared with a comparison group of 141 university students who were on the waiting list and would undergo the intervention later. Results emerged from the mixed ANCOVAs showed that, controlling for age and sex, students in the clinical group reported a significant increase in Present Positive (p <.001; η²p = .047) and Future Positive (p <.001; η²p = .057) time attitudes and a decrease in Present Negative (p =.045; η²p = .016) at the end of the intervention compared to students in the comparison group. Our results support the hypothesis that a psychodynamic counseling intervention can have a positive impact on university students’ time attitudes. Given the association between time attitudes, academic outcomes and health, these findings support the development of interventions that incorporate time attitudes for university students.

IntroductionUniversity counselling services are a strategic resource for supporting students' psychological well-being. Despite evidence of their effectiveness, little is known about the psychological factors contributing to premature dropout from this kind of intervention. The current study aimed to explore the role of students' maladaptive personality traits and epistemic stances in influencing dropout from a counselling intervention.MethodThe total sample included 605 university students (Mage = 22.6; SDage = 3.34) who referred to a university counselling centre. Of these, 174 students (29%) prematurely discontinued the intervention. At intake, participants' maladaptive personality traits and epistemic stances were assessed. A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted to compare psychological profiles of dropouts and non-dropouts, controlling for gender and degree programme.ResultsDropout students reported significantly higher scores on all five maladaptive personality traits (negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition and psychoticism), as well as on epistemic mistrust and credulity. No significant differences were found in epistemic trust, and no interaction effects emerged between dropout status and gender or degree programme.ConclusionThese findings suggest that heightened maladaptive traits and difficulties in epistemic stance may impair engagement with brief counselling. Specifically, mistrust, credulity, and maladaptive traits may reflect relational vulnerabilities that predispose individuals to disengage. Early identification of at-risk profiles could help clinicians tailor interventions to promote engagement and reduce dropout. To this end, addressing personality and epistemic challenges early in the process may foster trust and enhance commitment-even within the time constraints of short-term counselling formats.

Sexting is the exchange of sexually explicit content via smartphone or the Internet. These growing forms of technology-mediated sexual behaviors are common in youth. Recent studies investigated the association between personality traits and different kinds of sexting, from normal to risky and aggressive behavior. Few studies to date have explored the role of pathological personality domains in aggravated and risky sexting in emerging adulthood, particularly within the Italian context. The main aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate in a sample of emerging adults the association between the five personality domains (i.e., negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism) measured with the Personality Inventory for DSM-5-Brief Form (PID-5-BF) and aggravated and risky sexting behaviors, controlling for age and sex. The sample included 876 emerging adults (69.1% females) aged 18-29 (Mage = 23.8; SDage = 2.56) recruited through snowball sampling who had completed an online survey. Participants completed the PID-5-BF and the subscales on aggravated and risky sexting from the Sexting Behaviors Questionnaire. The four negative binomial regression analyses showed that the two forms of aggravated sexting (i.e., sharing sexts without permission and sexting under pressure) were positively associated with detachment, antagonism, and disinhibition. Risky sexting during substance use and with strangers was negatively associated with negative affectivity and positively associated with antagonism and disinhibition. Finally, risky sexting for emotion regulation was positively associated with antagonism and disinhibition. These findings provide a broader understanding of the association between personality domains and sexting. Results have implications for further research and for implementing preventive interventions targeting emerging adults.

Mentalized affectivity, intended as the ability to identify, process, and express emotions through autobiographical memory, is pivotal in psychological change. While university counseling has been shown to improve well-being, most studies focus solely on symptom reduction. Since university students often experience confusion proper of the developmental stage of "emerging adulthood," evaluating their ability to mentalize could improve our understanding of counseling effectiveness. This study investigates changes in psychological well-being and mentalized affectivity in 114 university students who underwent counseling, compared to 108 students on a waiting list. Both groups were assessed at pre- and post-test, with the clinical group completing counseling between evaluations. A series of 2x2 mixed-design ANCOVAs were conducted, one for each dependent variable. Results showed a significant decrease in depressive symptoms and an increase in identifying and processing emotions among students who underwent counseling, unlike the comparison group. Our results suggest that a greater emphasis on how university counseling exerts its effectiveness beyond symptom reduction might be particularly important to tailor interventions to the specific issues of university students. Considering changes in students' mentalized affectivity represents an innovative aspect of research in this field of study.

We conducted a comprehensive umbrella review including all published meta-analyses and systematic reviews on suicide-related outcomes among adults in custody. Eligible studies were searched for in major scientific databases following the PRISMA method up to February 2023. The quality of each study was assessed using the AMSTAR-2 protocol. Twenty studies were included, consisting of 11 meta-analyses and nine systematic reviews. Factors associated with suicide outcomes among individuals in custody were categorized into five domains: clinical status, historical, custodial, criminological, and prevention. However, all systematic studies reported considerable heterogeneity (I2 > 50%–85%). Most systematic literature reviews and/or meta-analyses showed moderate quality based on AMSTAR-2. This umbrella review highlights individual factors (in the clinical status and historical domain), contextual factors (in the custodial and criminological domains), and protective factors (in the prevention domain) to provide a clearer understanding of the prison-related domains involved in the development and maintenance of suicide-related outcomes.

Psychological distress is widespread among university students, with depression being notably more prevalent compared to the general population. University counseling services are crucial for addressing these mental health challenges, and numerous studies have demonstrated their effectiveness in reducing psychological distress and improving overall well-being. However, there is limited research on what factors predict the success of university counseling. This study aims to evaluate whether counseling improves well-being, specifically by reducing depressive symptoms, and to explore whether personality traits influence counseling outcomes. Participants included 125 Italian university students (64.8% female, mean age = 22.69; SD = 3.04) who utilized counseling services. They completed a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), and the Personality Inventory for DSM-5-TR (PID-5-TR) at three points: immediately after the intake interview (T0), just before the intervention (T1), and after the fourth session (T2). Linear mixed models were used to analyze changes in depression levels, revealing a significant reduction in depressive symptoms from pre- to post-intervention. Among personality traits, only antagonism showed a significant interaction with time. Additionally, higher detachment scores were associated with higher depression levels. These findings emphasize the need for focused attention on students’ emotional issues and suggest that personality traits may influence the effectiveness of counseling.

Background: The passage from pre-adolescence to adolescence is presented as a turning point for the achievement of those abilities in social understanding as they commonly appear in adulthood. Developmental perspectives point to the possible role of neuro-cognitive maturation and social experiences to facilitate this growth. This paper has the goal to goalsto propose a valid and reliable measure of the new quantitative and qualitative advancements in social understanding occurring in the adolescent passage; relying on this, the research has two main objectives (a) to establish the associations between the advancements in social understanding and the executive functions held responsible for the neuro-cognitive rearrangements of adolescence; (c) to evidence the significant associations between attachment models and the development of social understanding in this phase of life. Methods: 100 subjects (50 boys and 50 girls, aged 11–15) were administered with AICA, SCORS, CNT, Stroop Color-Word Test, and WISC-III. Results: Advancements in the complexity of self–other representations and mentalization of interpersonal exchanges significantly occurs in the passage from pre-adolescence to adolescence and seem to be promoted by increased performances in executive control and cognitive shifting. Dismissing state of mind with respect to attachment is associated with lower development of social understanding in adolescence. The neurocognitive reorganization that underlies the passage from pre-adolescence to adolescence seems to provide the scaffolding for more sophisticated interpretations of the social world. Past and current affective experience can boost or hinder the full deployment of such human maturational potential. Given the importance of social cognition for adjustment and psychopathology, clinical intervention should target the amelioration of individual and family abilities in social reasoning and mentalization.

Rationale: Despite its importance to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination has raised hesitation in large segments of the population. This hesitation makes it important to understand the mechanisms underlying vaccine acceptance. To this end, the study adopts the Semiotic Cultural Psychology Theory, holding that social behaviors - and therefore, vaccination acceptance - depend on the cultural meanings in terms of which people interpret the social world. Objective: The study aims at estimating the impact a) of the way people interpret the socio-institutional context of the pandemic and b) of the underlying cultural worldviews on vaccine acceptance. More particularly, the study tested the three following hypotheses. a) The meanings grounding the interpretation of the socio-institutional framework - that is, trust in institutions and political values - are an antecedent of vaccination acceptance. b) The impact of these meanings is moderated by the cultural worldviews (operationalized as symbolic universes). And c), the magnitude of the symbolic universes' moderator effect depends on the uncertainty to which the respondent is exposed. The exposure to uncertainty was estimated in terms of socioeconomic status - the lower the status, the high the exposure to uncertainty. Methods: An Italian representative sample (N = 3020) completed a questionnaire, measuring vaccination acceptance, the meanings attributed to the socio-institutional context - that is, political values and trust in in-stitutions - and symbolic universes. Results: The findings were consistent with the hypotheses. a) Structural equation modelling proved that vaccine acceptance was predicted by trust in institutions. b) Multigroup analysis revealed that symbolic universes moderated the correlation between trust in institutions and vaccine acceptance. And c), the moderation effect of symbolic universes proved to occur only in the segment of lower socio-economic status (i.e., the group exposed to higher uncertainty). Conclusions: Vaccination acceptance is not only a medical issue; it is also dependent upon the rationalization of the socio-institutional context. Implications for the promotion of vaccination acceptance are discussed.

Previous research highlighted the significant role of locus of control in predicting academic achievement and dropout, emphasizing the need for reliable measures to identify factors that foster academic success. This study aimed to develop an academic locus of control (ALoC) measure. Participants were 432 Italian university students (69 males, 363 females) pursuing bachelor’s (N = 339) and master’s (N = 123) degrees in Italy. The ALoC scale resulted in two factors, internal (6 items) and external ALoC (12 items), which demonstrated satisfactory dimensionality and invariance across students’ gender and attending degree. Internal and external ALoC were, respectively, negatively, and positively associated with academic dropout. This study confirmed the importance of locus of control for academic achievement, suggesting that university programs should address students’ personal sense of failure while promoting a sense of mastery and responsibility for academic outcomes.

As immigration is one of the dominant issues in contemporary public discourse, it is important to explain the mechanism of prejudice against immigrants from a cultural psychology perspective. Several studies in the literature have confirmed a significant relationship between perceptions of the estimated size of the immigrant population and negative attitudes towards them. This study aims to investigate whether this relationship is moderated by symbolic universes, i.e., affect-laden generalized worldviews. The study involves a representative sample of 3020 Italians who participated in a computer-assisted web survey and completed a questionnaire containing items measuring their estimates of the size of the migrant population in Italy, political orientation, cultural worldviews (symbolic universes), and the perceived threat posed by migrants. The results confirm that the relationship between the estimated size of the migrant population and the perceived threat is moderated by symbolic universes, being stronger for participants who hold both pessimistic and idealizing symbolic universes. The results are interpreted within the framework of semiotic cultural psychology theory.

IntroductionUniversity counseling centers represent important resources for personal development, and students are increasingly turning to them for help. The present study aimed at, first, evaluating changing in psychological functioning before and after a university counseling intervention and, second, exploring which psychological variables predicted the intervention outcome. MethodsFor this purpose, 122 students who attended university counseling services were administered measures to assess personality traits, and measures to assess state variables - intended as contextual, rather than stable, alterations in functioning - such as anxiety, hopelessness and depression. Several Linear Mixed Models were performed to measure the differences between OQ-45 scores before and after the intervention (one for each OQ dimension and OQ total score); then, two steps of multiple regression analyses were performed. ResultsSignificative reductions between pre-test and post-test OQ-45 scores were found, highlighting increased levels of well-being; personality traits seem not to be predictive of the intervention outcome, while state variables significantly contribute to the psychological wellbeing improvement after counseling intervention. DiscussionOur findings highlight the importance of paying attention to the role of affective difficulties in predicting the counseling effectiveness.

University counseling represents an effective tool for promoting students' mental health, for reducing a variety of psychological disorders, and to offer developmental support and guidance in the resolution of educational and academic challenges. Despite this, there is still a paucity of literature on which variables are involved in explaining the effectiveness of university counseling. For this reason, we applied the multiple code theory to the clinical process by analyzing therapists' clinical notes. Aims of the study are to investigate the usefulness of a university counseling intervention by evaluating changes in the psychological symptomatology between pre- and postintervention and in the linguistic measures applied to clinical reports of the first and last sessions. The sample consisted of 88 university students (mean age = 23.30, 73.9% identified as female) and 15 psychologists (mean age = 33.93). Measures used are Italian Discourse Attributes Analysis Program and Linguistic Measures of the Referential Process, Outcome Questionnaire-45, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory-II, Personality Inventory for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 Brief Form. Results showed a significant reduction in patients' symptomatology in all the dimensions investigated. Moreover, some significant changes in linguistic measures applied to clinical reports emerged such as an increase in reflection/reorganization process. Finally, these findings are also confirmed by significant correlations between students' personality traits and linguistic measures of clinical reports, between pre/postintervention tests scores, and linguistic characteristics of first/last clinical reports that respectively emerged. In conclusion, our study shows that brief counseling intervention shows improvement in students' symptoms by both investigating the instruments and analyzing the writing style of counselors who performed the brief treatments.

With the aim of investigating analogies and differences between psychotherapeutic processes, ten good-outcome and ten poor-outcome cases were selected from a sample of patients treated at the University Hospital of Psychiatry, Salzburg, Austria, and the Department of Psycho-Traumatology of the Clinic St. Irmingard, Prien am Chiemsee, Germany. They were monitored daily using the Therapy Process Questionnaire (TPQ), and their evolution over time was analyzed by means of Principal Components Analysis and Linear Discriminant Analysis. The results highlight that poor-outcome patients show a separation between cognitive processes (Principal Component 1) and relational-emotional processes (Principal Component 2) (r = − 0.25; p = n.s.), while in the good-outcome patients these aspects are well integrated (r = 0.70; p = 0.02). These results corroborate the validity of the daily monitoring procedure and also indicate the need for greater attention to the relational and emotional aspects of the patients rather than merely to their cognitive functioning and well-being. In poor-outcome cases, burdensome emotions and interpersonal experiences on the one hand and cognitive/well-being aspects of the mental processing on the other, stay unrelated. Successful therapeutic processing, as in good-outcome cases, requires an integration of cognitive and affective components.

The spread of COVID-19 created a state of emergency all over the world and played a big role in the decline of the mental health of citizens. The context of the workplace became an important variable in the impact of the lockdown on individuals. In this study, we deepened the categories of healthcare workers (HWs), virtual workers (VWs), and the elderly, along with their emotional approach to this emergency. A sample of 257 participants (ElderlyN = 62; HWsN = 104; VWsN = 91) completed: a semi-structured interview on their experience during lockdown via telephone; an online survey with a sociodemographic questionnaire; the Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale (DERS); and the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). Linguistic measures of the Referential Process were utilized to code the interviews. An independent ANOVA explored the variability among groups. The results show more affective language in the Elderly (M = 0.0310, SD = 0.0070) and a growth in spirituality (M = 4.16, SD = 3.17). HWs displayed a higher PTGI (M = 56.84, SD = 20.29), while VWs displayed a lower PTGI (M = 50.02, SD = 21.05). Moreover, VWs presented higher scores in Impulse on the DERS (M = 11.67, SD = 5.05) and a more cognitive/abstract narration (Reflection IREF M = 0.0260, SD = 0.0071; Reorganization IWRRL M = 0.5419, SD = 0.0032; Referential Activity IWRAD M = 0.4978, SD = 0.0029). This study aims to take the work context into consideration to create focused interventions.

AIM:Psychotherapy could be interpreted as a self-organizing process which reveals discontinuous pattern transitions (so-called phase transitions). Whereas this was shown in the conscious process of awake patients by different measures and at different time scales, dreams came very seldom into the focus of investigation. The present work tests the hypothesis that, by dreaming, the patient gets progressively more access to affective-laden (i.e., emotionally charged) unconscious dimensions. Furthermore, the study investigates if, over the course of psychotherapy, a discontinuous phase transition occurs in the patient's capacity to get in contact with those unconscious dimensions.METHODS AND PROCEDURES:A series of 95 dream narratives reported during a psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a female patient (published as the "dreams of Amalie X") was used for analysis. An automated text analysis procedure based on multiple correspondence analysis was applied to the textual corpus of the dreams, highlighting a 10-factor structure. The factors, interpreted as affective-laden unconscious meaning dimensions, were adopted to define a 10-dimensional phase space, in which the ability of a dream to be associated with one or more local factors representing complex affective-laden meanings is measured by the Euclidean distance (ED) from the origin of this hyperspace. The obtained ED time series has been fitted by an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and by non linear methods like dynamic complexity, recurrence plot, and time frequency distribution. Change point analysis was applied to these non linear methods.RESULTS:The results show an increased frequency and intensity of dreams to get access to affective-laden meanings. Non linear methods identified a phase transition-like jump of the ED dynamics onto a higher complexity level of the dreaming process, suggesting a non linear process in the patient's capacity to get in contact with unconscious dimensions.CONCLUSION:The study corroborates the hypothesis that, by dreaming, the patient gets progressively more access to affective-laden meaning intended as unconscious dimensions. The trajectory of this process has been reproduced by an ARIMA model, and beyond this, non linear methods of time series analysis allowed the identification of a phase transition in the unconscious process of the psychoanalytic therapy under investigation.

The literature on psychotherapy research makes use of the so-called "Dodo Bird Verdict" to show that therapeutic change owes more to common factors than to specific techniques. According to the bulk of the empirical literature, common factors explain 30–70% of therapy outcome variance, while specific factors account for between 5% and 15%. This formulation is based on the assumption that common and specific factors are independent of each other. The present study uses a systematic review of the literature to empirically demonstrate that common and specific factors of change are actually correlated. In other words, the prevalent practice in the literature of using correlated common and specific factors as independent predictors in classical ANOVA models is both statistically unsound and conceptually distorted. We offer several alternative proposals for a sensible re-evaluation of the Dodo Bird verdict.