The Forms of Self-Criticising/Attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale (FSCRS, Gilbert, Clarke, Hempel, Miles & Irons, 2004) is a self-report instrument that measures selfcriticism and self-reassurance. It has shown good reliability and has been used in several different studies and in a range of different populations. The aim of the present study is to explore its psychometric proprieties in a large clinical and nonclinical sample, in order to provide reliability and, for the first time, normative data. Differences in population scores will also be addressed.Method: Data was collated from 12 different studies, resulting in 887 nonclinical participants and 167 mixed diagnosis patients who completed the FSCRS.Results: A confirmatory factor analysis shows that both in non-clinical and clinical samples, the three-factor model of FSCRS is a well-adjusted measure for assessing the two forms of self-criticism and a form of self-reassurance. Normative data for the scale is presented. Comparing the two populations, the nonclinical was more self-reassuring and less self-critical then the clinical. Comparing genders, in the nonclinical population men were more self-reassuring and less self-critical than women. No significant gender differences were found in the clinical population.Conclusions: Taken together, results corroborate previous findings about the link between self-criticism and clinical population, which stresses the need to assess it.Results also confirm that FSCRS is a robust and reliable instrument, which now can aid clinicians and researchers to have a better understanding of the results, taking into account the norms presented.Keywords: self-criticism, FSCRS, confirmatory factor analysis, normative study -Cultural and age differences should be carefully addressed; -Generalizations to different psychopathologies deserve attention, as the clinical population considered here derived mainly from depressed participants.

This study adds to the evidence that fears of positive emotions are important features of mental health difficulties. Unaddressed, these fears can block positive emotions and may lead to emotional avoidance of positive affect thus contributing as blocks to successful therapy. Therapies for depression may therefore profitably assess and desensitize the fear of positive emotions.

No abstract

No abstract

Evidence documenting associations between 5-HTTLPR and parenting behavior led to testing the hypothesis that this polymorphism moderates the effect of the quality of environmental context on maternal sensitivity. Participants were 210 Portuguese mothers and their preschool children, recruited from the community. An index reflecting the quality of the environmental context was derived based on nine markers (e.g. single parenthood; parental education, economic difficulties, family conflict, maternal psychopathology). Maternal sensitivity was measured observationally. Maternal saliva was collected with OraGene kits for genetic analysis. Results revealed a gene-X-environment interaction, such that shortallele homozygotes proved more sensitive to the family context than long-allele carriers (i.e. sL/LL), displaying the highest and lowest levels of maternal sensitivity, depending on, respectively, low and high quality levels of the environmental context. Because even mothers carrying the long allele evinced similar responsiveness to the environmental context, but to a lesser extent, findings proved consistent with the weak differential susceptibility model of person-X-context interaction. Results are discussed in light of prior and related gene-X-environment findings.