The present study investigated whether, and to what extent, reflective functioning (RF) during preadolescence is associated with maternal attachment security and RF, and with the child’s attachment security. Thirty-nine mother–preadolescent child dyads from a non-clinical population participated in the study. Maternal and child RF were assessed by applying the Reflective Functioning Scale to the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and to the Child Attachment Interview transcripts. Children of mothers who showed a secure attachment model regarding the relationship with their parents during childhood reported higher levels of RF than the children of mothers who were classified as insecure on the AAI. Child RF was positively associated with maternal “Coherence of the Mind” on the AAI and negatively associated with maternal derogation of attachment. A strong, significant association was also found between child attachment security and child RF. Children who were rated as being more emotionally open, more able to balance positive and negative descriptions of their parents, more prone to support their assertions through examples, and more able to positively resolve conflicts with their parents showed higher RF. On the contrary, children who resorted to a higher extent to idealization and dismissal toward their parents showed a lesser degree of RF. Notably, a very strong association was found between the score on the “Overall coherence” subscale and the child’s ability to mentalize mixed-ambivalent mental states in the context of their family relationships. As expected, child and maternal RF resulted significantly positively correlated with each other. In particular, only maternal RF (and not maternal attachment security) predicted child RF, and only maternal ability to mentalize mixed-ambivalent mental states predicted the corresponding ability in the children.

The current study investigated the inter-rater reliability and the construct validity of the Rorschach Lerner Defense Scale (LDS). In particular, it aimed to explore the inter-rater reliability, analyzing the most frequent coding mistakes in an attempt to improve the coding guidelines, and to investigate the ability of the scale to distinguish between individuals with neurotic-level and borderline-level personality organization, according to the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2 (PDM-2), and non-clinical subjects. Eighty clinical subjects and 80 non-clinical ones participated in the study. Among the clinical subjects, 40 have borderline-level personality organization and 40 have neurotic-level personality organization. Non-clinical subjects were drawn from an archival dataset of non-clinical individuals who previously participated in a Rorschach normative study. The LDS showed substantial inter-rater reliability; however, guidelines could be improved, specifically with regard to the threshold for coding Devaluation and Idealization at level 1. Furthermore, more examples should be included in the manual about the coding of Projective Identification and Denial. The LDS distinguished borderline-level subjects from both the non-clinical and neurotic groups with regard to Devaluation and Projective Identification, with borderline-level personality organization subjects reporting higher scores than either of the two other groups. Only the Denial scale discriminated between the non-clinical and neurotic group, with the latter reporting higher scores of high-level Denial.