During the last 30 years, there has been an increased interest on childrens' social-emotional assessment and intervention. However, it was only more recently that this awareness has been focused on preschoolers. The aim of this study is to compare 41 3-6 years-old children referred for psychological intervention for problem behavior (PB) with 41 paired typically developing children, with regard to their social skills and problem behaviors. Each child was rated by parents and teachers with the Portuguese version of the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales – Second Edition (PKBS-2). Results from t test analyses indicated fewer social skills and higher levels of problem behaviors for the PB children as rated by home and school informants, mainly associated with large effect sizes. The discriminant functional analyses revealed that 93.9% and 78.0% (based on parents and teachers’ ratings, respectively) of the children were well included in the respective group. The Over Activity, Opposition/Explosive and Social Cooperation subscales better discriminated between groups and the more frequently rated items were analyzed for both informants. Results are discussed according to the literature available on this issue and highlight the validity of the Portuguese version of the PKBS-2 to assess social skills and problem behaviors in preschool age.

According to the object relation theory (in Kernberg’s view) the self-object representations serve as functioning regulators in both emotional and social domains. Thus it should be expected that the level of maturity of psychic structures (and the level of personality organisation as well) will determine the extent of the relational experiences processing. In consequence, also the narrativity of the utterances about close relationships will be affected by this. In the presented study, 95 autobiographical narratives generated by people with different levels of personality organisation (borderline, neurotic, and integrated) were analysed according to narrativity indices in two different modes (lexical; classical content analysis of narrative coherence). Inter-group comparisons revealed significant differences between borderline and integrated group (integrated group has higher coherence, specificity, human-focus and lower self-focus) and borderline and neurotic group (neurotic group has higher indices of orientation, structure, and concreteness). Results are discussed in the light of (1) the legitimation of the presented model of connections between intrapsychic structures (level of personality) and external manifestations (narratives), and (2) the usability of selected narrativity indices in clinical diagnosis, especially in understanding the processes of adaptation and self-regulation.

New results in Neurophysiology obviously confirm approved theoretical models in handwriting psychology. Handwriting is brain-writing, and the patterns of micro-movements on paper reflect processes in the brain. Therefore, handwriting psychology allows highly efficient psychodynamic diagnostics while describing the dynamic and functional structure of personality. These results encourage reviewing the validity of the handwriting psychology, since the existing studies both with positive conclusions and with critical approach suffer from significant methodological drawbacks and negligence. The new approach is based on computer modelling of the handwriting psychology that ensures the objectivity and the reliability of research. It allows meeting the complexity of the topic by fundamental statistical investigations and systematic validation against various diagnostic instruments (psychological tests, personality inquiries, assessment centre etc.). Several new studies with significant results illustrate the approach.

This paper attempts to make a comparison between personality disposition and perception of parental attitudes toward drug abuse amongst students in 1985 and in 2015. This is a longitudinal study conducted by the authors. The sample in both the phases of study consisted of only male students between the ages of 17 and 25. In the first phase, conducted in 1985, a sample of 155 abusers and 155 non abusers was taken, out of which 117 drug abusers were from urban area and 38 were from rural area, and there were 113 non abusers from urban area and 42 from rural area. In the second phase, conducted in 2015, a total number of 100 respondents were taken out of which 50 were abusers and 50 were non abusers. Out of this sample, 41 drug abusers were from urban areas and 9 were from rural areas, and there were 36 non abusers from urban area and 14 from rural area. The tools of measurement used were Multi Phasic Personality Questionnaire by Murthy, Laxminarayan, Satyavathi (1964). In order to measure perception of parental attitudes the test used was Parental Attitude Questionnaire by Spence and Helmreich (1979).