The aim of this article is to present validation data about a self-report rating scale for the assessment of interpersonal guilt according to Control-Mastery Theory (CMT; Silbershatz, 2005; Weiss, 1993; Weiss, Sampson, & The Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group, 1986), the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15s (IGRS-15s). In order to perform the validation of this tool in an Italian sample we have collected a sample of 645 nonclinical subjects. They had to complete the IGRS-15s, the Scale for the Measurement of the Impending Punishment (SMIP; Caprara et al., 1990), the Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire-67 (IGQ-67; O'Connor et al., 1997), the Psychological General Well-Being Index (PGWBI; Dupuy, 1984), and the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS; Davis, Panksepp, & Normansell, 2003), together with an ad-hoc questionnaire for collecting demographic data, the Socio-Demographical Schedule. We have performed a confirmatory factor analysis to verify if the four-factor solution based on CMT and replicated in previous research (Gazzillo et al., 2017) was confirmed. Then, we checked the retest reliability of IGRS-15s after four weeks in a random subsample of 54 subjects. In order to assess its concurrent and discriminant validity, we calculated the correlations between IGRS-15s assessment and SMIP and IGQ-67. Finally, to test its construct validity, we assessed the relationships between the IGRS-15s and the affective systems using the ANPS and the wellbeing assessed with the PGWBI. The data collected support the retest reliability and the concurrent and discriminant validity of the measure, and we have collected preliminary data about its construct validity. Examples of the possible clinical and research applications of this tool are discussed.
The aim of this article is to present an overview of several recently proposed hypotheses about the development of morality and guilt during the evolution of our species and the individual psychic development. The article will show how group selection seems to have favored the development of prosocial motivations, emotions, and skills, which are the basis of "moral" judgments and behaviors, and how the specific experiences of each individual and her/his belonging to a specific culture shape this first moral innate "draft." We will then review relevant empirical data about the development of guilt in infancy and early childhood from empathic concern and the tendency to feel responsible for other people's wellbeing, and the temperamental and environmental factors at the basis of adaptive and maladaptive guilt. Finally, we will show the substantial compatibility between these recently developed hypotheses and data and the hypotheses developed by the Control-Mastery theory starting from clinical observation and from the ideas of several psychoanalytic authors.
This article introduces the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15 (IGRS-15), a brief clinician-rated tool for the clinical assessment of interpersonal guilt as conceived in Control-Mastery Theory (CMT; Silberschatz, 2015; Weiss, 1993), and its psychometric proprieties. The items of the IGRS-15 were derived from the CMT clinical and empirical literature about guilt, and from the authors' clinical experiences. Twenty-eight clinicians assessed 154 patients with the IGRS-15, the patient self-reported Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire-67 (IGQ-67; O'Connor, Berry, Weiss, Bush, & Sampson, 1997), and the Clinical Data Form (CDF; Westen & Shedler, 1999). A semi-exploratory factor analysis pointed to a four-factor solution in line with the kinds of guilt described in CMT: Survivor guilt, Separation/disloyalty guilt, Omnipotent responsibility guilt, and Self-hate. The test-retest reliability of the IGRS-15 was good. Moreover, the IGRS-15 showed good concurrent and discriminant validity with the IGQ-67. IGRS-15 represents a first step in the direction of supporting the clinical judgment about interpersonal guilt with an empirically sound and easy-to-use tool.
A good enough theory of psychological functioning and development, and of how psychotherapy works, should take into account recent scientific developments about emotional, motivational, and cognitive functioning. They show how human beings are "wired" to adapt to reality and share a set of evolutionarybased emotions, motivations and skills that are shaped by the cognitive-affective structures (schemas) developed on the basis of the emotionally relevant experiences, in particular of the first years of life. Attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1980) represents the first real attempt in this direction, although the clinical implications of this theory are still fragmented and not specific enough. We think that control mastery theory (CMT; Weiss, 1993) could be useful for integrating attachment, psychodynamic, and cognitive-evolutionary thinking. Such an integrated model is based on the centrality of adaptation, sense of safety, and real experiences; on the central role of inner representations/beliefs/schemas in linking adverse developmental experiences and attentional strategies, perception organization, emotional reactions, behavior, and psychopathology; and on the necessity to modify this relational knowledge in order to help patients get better. To explore the possible integration between attachment theory and CMT, we will focus on a specific topic, the disorganization of attachment and its psychopathological consequences, and we will illustrate the implications of this integration with a brief clinical example. We chose to focus on attachment disorganization because it is the attachment category more consistently related to psychopathology.
The aim of this paper is to illustrate the meaning and functions of dreams according to control-mastery theory (CMT), a cognitive-dynamic relational theory developed and empirically validated in the last 40 years by the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group (Gazzillo, 2016; Silberschatz, 2005; Weiss, 1993a; Weiss, Sampson, & the Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group, 1986). CMT stresses how dreams reflect the person’s efforts to adapt to reality; their production is regulated by a safety principle and is an expression of human unconscious higher adaptive functions. According to this model, dreams represent our unconscious attempts to find solutions to emotionally relevant problems. In dreams people think about their main concerns, particularly those concerns that they have been unable to solve by conscious thought alone, and they try to develop and test plans and policies for dealing with them. After having introduced the reader to the main concepts of CMT, we will illustrate the different facets of the CMT model of dreams with several clinical examples. Finally, we will describe the core elements of recently developed models of dream functions and meanings based on empirical research on sleep and dreams, and we will show their substantial compatibility with hypotheses proposed by CMT.
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