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Introduction: Pathological love (PL)–behavior characterized by providing repetitive and uncontrolled care and attention to the partner in a romantic relationship–is a rarely studied condition, despite not being rare and causing suffering. This study aims at investigating impulsivity, personality, and characteristics related to the romantic relationship in this population.Methods: Eighty-nine individuals (50 with PL; 39 individuals with no psychiatric disorder) were compared regarding impulsivity, personality, type of attachment, satisfaction with romantic relationship, and love style.Results: Individuals with PL have higher levels of impulsivity (P<.001; Barratt Impulsiveness Scale), higher self-transcendence, that is, are more unconventional and hold sense of communion with a wider reality (P<.001; Temperament and Character Inventory) and keep dissatisfactory romantic relationships (P<.001; Adapted Relationship Assessment Scale).Conclusion: Individuals with PL present personality traits and relationship aspects that must be taken into account in devising assessment and therapeutic strategies for this population.

The progress of research may bring broader precision on the clinical, etiologic and comorbid features. Thus, this woud be favoring an effetive approach to the bearer, adding a potential repercussion on the affective life of a significant number of people.

ResumoContexto: Diversas metodologias foram desenvolvidas para validar instrumentos psicométricos. No entanto, na literatura científica, há escassez de instrumentos para avaliar os relacionamentos amorosos. Objetivo: O presente trabalho tem como objetivo validar para o português o conteúdo dos instrumentos autoaplicáveis Love Attitudes Scale (Escala de Atitudes do Amor -Hendrick et al., 1998), Relationship Assessment Scale (Escala de Avaliação do Relacionamento -Hendrick, 1988) e Adult Attachment Types (Tipos de Apego do Adulto -Hazan et al., 1987), levando em consideração o contexto cultural brasileiro e, consequentemente, possibilitando que o estudo do amor patológico seja viável na população brasileira. Métodos: Tal processo envolveu quatro etapas: (1) tradução para o português, (2) retrotradução, (3) apresentação da versão corrigida para profissionais de saúde mental e estudantes universitários e (4) aplicação da versão final em amostra da população-alvo utilizando uma escala analógico-visual. Resultados: As escalas foram facilmente compreendidas e discriminaram significativamente indivíduos com amor patológico de voluntários saudáveis. Conclusão: Nossos resultados mostram que a versão brasileira desses instrumentos é válida e pode ser usada em investigações envolvendo relacionamentos amorosos.Berti MP, et al. / Rev Psiq Clín. 2011;38(4):135-8 Palavras-chave: Amor, escalas, comportamento compulsivo, validação, tradução. AbstractBackground: Several methodologies were developed to validate psychometric instruments. However, there are, in the scientific literature, a lack of instruments to evaluate romantic relationship. Objective: The present work aims at validating into Portuguese the content of the self-report Love Attitudes Scale (Escala de Atitudes do Amor -Hendrick et al., 1998), the Relationship Assessment Scale (Escala de Avaliação do Relacionamento -Hendrick, 1988), and the Adult Attachment Types (Tipos de Apego do Adulto -Hazan et al., 1987), taking the Brazilian cultural context into consideration, thus rendering the study of pathological love in the Brazilian population feasible. Methods: Such process involved four stages: (1) translation into Portuguese, (2) back translation, (3) presentation of the translated version to mental health professionals and university students, and (4) application of the final version in a sample of the target population using a rating scale. Results: The scales were easily understood and significantly discriminated individuals with pathological love and healthy volunteers. Discussion: Our results show that the Brazilian version of these instruments is valid and may be used in investigations involving romantic relationships.

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Ao meu querido pai, Domingos, de quem recebi a genética e o modelo de comprometimento e dedicação ao objeto de amor. À minha querida filha, Isabella, meu maior exercício e exemplo de companheirismo e amor verdadeiro. AGRADECIMENTOS Em ordem cronológica, agradeço a todos aqueles que, de maneira direta ou indireta, contribuíram para a concretização deste trabalho.

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Dear Editor, The behavior of caring and paying too much attention to one's partner in an excessive and uncontrolled way is called pathological love (PL) 1 . Impulsiveness is a characteristic of human behavior associated with decision making that may be elevated in several psychiatric disorders 2 . It has been observed that PL subjects are more impulsive than healthy subjects 1 . Patton et al.3 conceive impulsiveness as a multidimensional construct composed by lack of attention, lack of planning, and motor impulsiveness.Another paradigm used to measure impulsiveness is the Delay Discount Task 4 which is based on the concept that impulsive people tend to prefer immediate rewards, even if smaller, instead of choosing a greater reward to come after some time.Twenty-five PL subjects > 18 years who felt their romantic relationship caused suffering were selected through media advertisement. A personal interview was conducted to eva luate if volunteers fit the following criteria: 1) withdrawal symptoms when far from partner; 2) caring for partner more than wanted; 3) unsuccessful attempts to reduce/control pathological behavior; 4) long time spent trying to control partners activities; 5) abandonment of interests/ activities previously valued; 6) behavior maintained despite personal/family problems¹.Thirty healthy subjects were selected among the control participants of a clinical trial using the Self-Report Questionnaire (SRQ-20)1 . PL subjects and healthy volunteers were mostly women (n = 43; 78.2%) with 36.0 years of age (SD = 9.8) and 15 years of education (SD = 4.3). Subjects gave written consent to fulfill the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) and the Delay Discount Task 5 . For this, subjects should choose between two imaginary monetary rewards being delivered immediately or after a certain time interval. Delay intervals investigated ranged from 6 hours to 25 years. The value of immediate rewards available ranged from R$ 1000 to R$ 1. They were also administered the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview 5 . Subjective value of time-delayed rewards was studied by the indifference point, the value in which the preference for immediate reward equals the one of the delayed reward. When indifference points are determined to variable intervals of time, an indifference curve is obtained, which provides information about how fast the subjective value of the reward decreases with time. This curve is explained by the equation: Vd = V/(1+kd), in which Vd is the current subjective value of a delayed reward (i.e. the indifference point), V is the value of the delayed reward, d is the delay length, and k is a constant proportional to the speed of reward discount (that can be obtained by the equation given that other values are known). The higher the value of k, the faster the value of a reward falls with rise of the advancement interval to obtain such reward 5 .