About
38
Publications
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Introduction
I’m a CBT, CFT and MIT psychotherapist, and my primary scientific and clinical interests are in personality disorders, anxiety disorders and perfectionism.
Additional affiliations
July 2016 - present
Position
- Manager
May 2015 - December 2015
Education
January 2019 - April 2019
Independent Researcher
Field of study
- Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy for Personality Disorders
January 2018 - December 2018
September 2016 - September 2016
SIDBT
Field of study
- Borderline Personality Disorder: the Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Publications
Publications (38)
Schema Therapy (ST) is a well-known approach for the treatment of personality disorders. This therapy integrates different theories and techniques into an original and systematic treatment model. The Young Schema Questionnaire L-3 (YSQ-L3) is a self-report instrument, based on the ST model, designed to assess 18 Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMSs). Du...
Aim
To pilot-test the effectiveness of a online compassion-focused crisis intervention for persons who were diagnosed with brief psychotic disorder and were still at high risk for a psychotic episode at the Italian announcement of lockdown on March 9th, 2020.
Methods
Six patients who, at the moment of the lockdown, were treated through different p...
Perfectionism is considered a multidimensional and transdiagnostic personality style that can occur in severe forms of personality disorders. The aim of this study is to explore the acceptability and the feasibility of an integrative mindful compassion group intervention for patients who were diagnosed with personality disorders and reported promin...
Objective: The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale is a 45-item scale that investigates the relevance of perfectionistic personality traits. Consistent with the dynamic-relational model developed by Paul Hewitt and colleagues, three interpersonal styles are assumed: self-oriented, other-oriented, socially prescribed perfectionism. In several studi...
Objective: The Interview for Perfectionistic Behavior is a structured interview that is aimed to o ering the clinician an idiographic tool for assessing perfectionism. It investigates through 51 items the three components of the dynamic-relational model of perfectionism (traits; self-presentation strategies; automatic ruminations), allowing to rate...
The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of mindful compassion for perfectionism (MCP). MCP is an 8-week group intervention that integrates compassion-focused therapy and dynamic relational therapy and has been previously pilot-tested in a few case series. Seventy-two postgraduate students with clinically high perfectionis...
Perfectionism measures developed in English-speaking populations have become frequently used in many non-English contexts, including in Italy. Establishing structural and measurement equivalence of instruments between Canadian and Italian samples is therefore important in establishing the validity of these concepts and instruments in Italian contex...
Little is known about effective psychosocial treatments for paranoid personality disorder. This study explores the feasibility of a novel treatment, namely Evolutionary Systems Therapy, in supporting individuals diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder. Seven patients attended 10 months of individual therapy without receiving any psychopharmaco...
Psychoticism is a multidimensional personality construct involving odd or eccentric behavior, quasi-psychotic experiences, mistrust, interpersonal detachment, and liability for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, as well as significant distress. Recent advances suggest it can be understood as a dimension that is continuously distributed in the popula...
Recent studies have suggested that one in ten persons diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder have extraordinary skills. This condition, often described as savant syndrome, may be associated with high psychosocial distress. The goal of this cases series is to present a novel form of therapy for adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder—le...
Background
There is a growing interest in the early assessment and treatment of maladaptive forms of personality traits in adolescents, though little is known about effective interventions. This case series aims to present the adaption of a therapy specifically tailored on schizotypal traits to adolescents. The treatment – Evolutionary Systems Ther...
Background
Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by a pervasive pattern of maladaptive behavior that has been associated with the liability for schizophrenia. Little is known about effective psychosocial interventions. This pilot non-inferiority randomized controlled trial aimed to compare a novel form of psychotherapy tailored for this...
Objective:
This mixed-methods study aimed to explore the role of externalizing traits in moderating the relationship between COVID-19 risk perception and vaccine hesitancy in patients diagnosed with cancer. A community-based participatory approach - comprising a preliminary qualitative inquiry and a subsequent cross-sectional research - was used t...
The treatment of schizoid personality disorder (SZPD) is a poorly studied area of psychotherapy. Although the construct of a schizoid personality has been defined for the last century, no clinical guidelines or evidence-based practices have been developed specifically for the treatment of SZPD. The cases series presented in this paper aim to explor...
The tendency to hide and mask suffering and one's perceived imperfections is one of the biggest obstacles in treating those with prominent perfectionistic traits. In this single case, we present an integrative form of psychotherapy for patients with recurrent strategies aimed at neither displaying nor disclosing their perfectionism. Emily was a 26-...
This study aimed at pilot-testing a new screening tool for assessing risk perception of and hesitancy about anti-COVID-19 in patients diagnosed with cancer. We recruited consecutive cancer patients (n = 356) who were either in treatment or follow-up. All the participants completed several measures of risk perception, confidence in safeguards, treat...
Background: We explored the role of criticism of self and of others, and metacognitive abilities in hearing voices that may refer to god or a divine presence, and qualitatively compared differences and similarities between persons who were diagnosed with psychosis and those who were not.
Methods: We recruited two samples of persons who heard divin...
The aim of this research is to present the linguistic and psychometric validation in Italian of the procedure developed by Paul H. Lysaker to assess metacognition. In two different studies we confirm the reliability of Metacognitive Assessment Scale-Abbreviated (MAS-A) and of clinical and non-clinical version of Indiana Psychiatric Illness Intervie...
Metacognition among those reporting psychotic symptoms is associated with a distortion in the way they understand their own and others’ mental states. Recent advances suggest that distortion in the form of self-criticism may activate a threat response and fuel symptom expression. At high level of self-criticism metacognition may reduce its protecti...
The objective of this pilot-study is to report the preliminary results of a specifically designed therapy for gifted students enrolled in highly competitive PhD programs. We outlined a case series design (n=7), with initial, final, and 1-month follow-up assessments. Inclusion criteria were: to be a student in an international PhD program; to be def...
Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is a severe condition, lacking specialized and empirically supported treatment. To provide the clinician with insights into how to treat this condition, we present a case study of a 61‐year‐old man with severe PPD who presented with ideas of persecution, emotionally charged hostility, and comorbid antisocial pers...
Despite the high prevalence and the recurrence of severe psychopathological outcomes, perfectionistic and overcontrolled personality traits have received very little attention from scholars and public health services. Recently, authors such as Paul Hewitt, Thomas Lynch and Paul Gilbert have fostered the development of psychometric and conceptual to...
Objective: The Perfectionistic Cognitions Inventory is a tool aimed at assessing perfectionistic automatic rumination. The questionnaire investigates the intrapersonal cognitive component of perfectionism by giving a general index of severity con rmed by the unifactorial structure of the original version and the Italian validation we present here....
Objective: The Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Scale is a self-report questionnaire consisting of 27 items with response on a 7-point Likert scale. The aim is to investigate the interpersonal components of perfectionism as de ned by Paul Hewitt and colleagues. The aim of the present study was to con rm the predictive validity of the scale in a la...
Objective: The Distress Overtolerance Scale is a scale whose purpose is to measure a person's ability to tolerate adverse psychological states. It assumes the existence of two sub-components: one generically linked to the ability of subjects to tolerate negative situations despite these in uencing their well-being; one related to the tendency of pe...
Introduction
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses report low-quality evidence to suggest a significant differential effectiveness between standard psychosocial interventions in reducing substance consumption. They highlight the presence of several types of treatments that usually integrate different approaches in a multimodal manner. CBT-based inte...
The current paper was aimed at: (1) investigating the comorbidity between obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and personality disorders (PDs) using an OCD sample and clinician-administered structured interviews; (2) exploring the associations of different cluster comorbid PDs with the specific symptom dimensions of OCD; (3) analyzing the variables...
Lo studio è volto ad indagare la presenza di SMP (schemi maladattati precoci) e sintomatologia fobico-sociale in un campione non clinico e rilevare le associazioni tra queste due variabili.
I dati relativi alla comorbilità con i disturbi di personalità nel disturbo ossessivo-compulsivo (DOC) sono abbastanza contraddittori, disomogenei e soprattutto non riferiti al contesto italiano. Alcuni studi, tuttavia, arrivano a riportare tassi di comorbilità con almeno un disturbo di personalità superiori al 50%, più frequentemente di cluster C...
In letteratura sono presenti alcune ricerche che indagano la presenza di Schemi Maladattivi Precoci (SMP) in soggetti con fobia sociale, ma l'esiguità di tali studi non permette l'identificazione di una costellazione tipica caratterizzante il disturbo. Il presente studio ha lo scopo di indagare se la presenza di SMP si differenzi in soggetti con fo...
In letteratura non è ancora stata chiaramente identificata una costellazione tipica di schemi disadattivi precoci che caratterizzi il Disturbo Borderline di Personalità. Ball e Cecero (2001) hanno trovato che il BPD si associa con l'abbandono come unico schema specifico del disturbo. Revees et al. (2007) hanno ipotizzato di trovare una correlazione...
I sintomi di tipo fobico-sociale, come il timore del giudizio altrui, che caratterizzano la fobia sociale, si possono spesso ritrovare in molte altre condizioni patologiche dalla struttura e dall'inquadramento nosografico completamente diverso. Può accadere infatti che percorsi psicopatologici, profondamente diversi gli uni dagli altri, abbiano in...
In letteratura sono presenti una serie, seppure limitata, di ricerche che esplorano in campioni clinici le correlazioni tra fobia sociale e schemi maladattivi precoci. Non sono invece presenti in alcun modo lavori che indaghino, in una popolazione non clinica, il rapporto tra sintomi fobico sociali e schemi maladattivi precoci. Il presente studio s...
Theoretical background: The current increase in incidence rates, the growing number of long-term survivors and its impact on psychosocial variables, make breast cancer a central problem today for the oncology. In recent years it has been paid special attention to the psychological consequences of this neoplasm and were established numerous professi...