Abstract:Interpersonal competence is crucial to human life, and poor social functioning is a typical feature of various psychopathological conditions. Given the relevance of the construct, increasing attention has recently been paid to the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire (ICQ; Buhrmester et al., 1988), a 40-item self-report measuring five domains of interpersonal competence. To provide additional data on the cross-cultural adaptability of the ICQ, we developed an Italian version and investigated its psychometric properties with two independent student samples. Respondents were mostly women (about three quarters), ranging in age from 18 to 57. Study 1 (n = 408) tested factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent validity. Study 2 (n = 59) investigated test-retest reliability. Taken together, the results of both these studies provided support for the cross-cultural applicability of the ICQ, and revealed interesting associations between interpersonal competence and constructs such as well-being, emotion dysregulation and empathy. Powered by Editorial Manager® and ProduXion Manager® from Aries Systems CorporationDear Dr. Iselin, Thank you or the opportunity to revise and resubmit our manuscript "Validity and Reliability of the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire: Empirical Evidence from an Italian Study" which had been JOBA-D-15-00032. We appreciate the input provided by you and the four reviewers and believe it has substantially enhanced the contribution our manuscript can make to the literature. Below we have copied your decision letter followed by the reviews and to each point made we provide a description of how we addressed the issue or a rationale for why we did not in the rare instance when that was applicable. Our comments to you and the reviewers are designated with "Reply:" at the start of the paragraph.Thank you and best wishes on behalf of all co-authors, (First Author)Dear Dr. XXXX:Thank you for your recent submission of the above referenced manuscript to the Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment. The review process on your manuscript is now complete. I was fortunate to receive the input of four reviewers who have expertise in this area of research, and I have reviewed the manuscript in detail.There are a number of strengths in your manuscript. It is well-written and contributes to our knowledge on interpersonal competence, which is of interest to our readership. We also had concerns about your manuscript which are outlined below. As you know, acceptance of a manuscript for publication in the Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment requires a favorable evaluation from all reviewers. Based upon the reviews, I regret that I cannot currently accept the manuscript for publication. I would, however, like to invite you to submit a revision that addresses our concerns. In that revision, please pay special attention to the following:• Address questions about whether the ICQ is measuring a general interpersonal construct rather than specific interpersonal skills.Re...

Late adoptions: attachment security and emotional availability in mother-child and father-child dyads. A growing body of research suggests that a history of neglect, abuse and institutionalization can negatively affect late-adopted children's attachment representations, and that adoptive parents can play a key role in enabling adopted children to earn secure attachments. Still, only a few studies have explored the quality of caregiver-child interaction in adoptive families. The present study aimed at verifying both the concordance of attachment in adoptive dyads (mother-children and father-children) and the relationship between attachment representations and parent-child interaction. The research involved 20 adoptive families in which the child's arrival had occurred between 12 to 36 months before the assessment, and where children were aged between 4.5 and 8.5 years. Attachment was assessed through the Adult Attachment Interview for parents and through the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task for children. The emotional quality of parent-child interaction was assessed trough the Emotional Availability Scales. Our results pointed out the presence of a relation between attachment representations of late-adopted children and their adoptive mothers (75%, K = 0.50, p = .025). In addition, we found that both insecure children and mothers showed lower levels of EA than secure ones. Some explanations are presented about why, in the early post-adoption period, child attachment patterns and dyadic emotional availability seem to be arranged on different frameworks for the two parental figures.

The aim of this study was to examine both the change in attachment state of mind and mentalization competencies as outcomes of a two-year weekly psychodynamic psychotherapy of a female adolescent with anorexia nervosa. The Attachment Interview for Childhood and Adolescence (AICA) was administered at pre and post-treatment, and coded both with the attachment coding system and the Reflective Functioning (RF) scale. At the pre-treatment, the anorexic adolescent was assessed as insecure dismissing with very low level of RF, while in the post-treatment a secure attachment model and higher RF were highlighted. The AICA can be considered a useful method to assess the outcomes in adolescent psychotherapy, like the AAI is useful in adult psychotherapy.

A growing body of attachment literature has focused on bridging the gap between research and clinical applications, even in clinical work with adoptive families. A brief-term clinical intervention focused on a multi-method assessment of attachment relationships and representations was performed in the first year after placement. This single case study aimed at analysing the attachment outcomes, through a long-term follow-up, both for the adoptive mother and her late-adopted son. We assumed that this five-session attachmentoriented intervention could help the mother enhance her sensitivity skills and her ability to understand both her own past attachment experiences and her child's insecure attachment as a consequence of the failures of his previous experiences of care, supporting her sixyear old child in acquiring a positive image of himself and of others and the security of the caregiver's availability up to adolescence.

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