2022/2023

2024/2025

DM270

M-PSI/08 (CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY)

DEPARTMENT OF BRAIN AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES

PERCORSO COMUNE

3°

2nd semester (17/02/2025 - 06/06/2025)

6

36 lesson hours

Italian

ORAL TEST

LICCIONE DAVIDE (titolare) - 6 ECTS

Learning Goals:
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the foundations of psychopathology. Answering the question "under what conditions can we speak of a psychopathological condition?" requires interdisciplinary collaboration among psychopathologists, psychiatrists, philosophers, psychotherapists, and neuroscientists. Therefore, the course aims to offer students a critical perspective on the conditions under which certain ways of being are diagnosed as psychopathological, also considering a historical perspective.

Expected Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the course, students will have acquired a constructive and critical foundational competence regarding the basics of psychopathology and scientific psychiatry.

1. History of Mental Illness and Critical Concepts Regarding Psychopathological Conditions: "Under what conditions, throughout Western history, have certain ways of being been categorized as psychopathological?"
2. The Birth of Scientific Psychiatry, the Problem of Explaining Behavioral Complexity, and the Precarious Solution of Biological Reductionism.
3. Descriptive Diagnosis, Explanatory Diagnosis, Analysis of the Phenomenological Structure of Mental Distress, and Cluster Analysis in Psychiatry (the etiological problem and explanatory levels in psychiatry).
4. Use and Misuse of DSM-5 and ICD in Psychiatry: Advantages and disadvantages of categorical reduction.
5. Interpretative Diagnostics (the problem of understanding and the nature of motives in psychiatric diagnosis). Between Scientism and Shamanism: The problem of ideological extremes in psychopathology.
6. Historical Theories and Current Theories of Psychic Suffering (psychoanalysis, systemic theories, behaviorism, standard cognitivism, constructivist cognitivism, and the current cognitive-neuropsychological landscape).
7. Neuropsychopathology as a Criterion for Overcoming the Cartesian Dichotomy of Organic vs. Functional(Introduction of the hermeneutic criterion of historical pathologies and non-historical pathologies).
8. Uses of Tests in Psychiatry.
9. Main Psychotropic Drugs Used in Psychiatry (lecture given by a psychiatrist).
10. Regulatory Aspects of Diagnostics in Psychopathology.
11. Practical Exercises on Real Clinical situations.

Lectures, discussion groups, practical exercises, presentation of video-recorded clinical cases
For each credit (25 hours), the breakdown is as follows:

3 hours of content delivery (using slides, scientific papers, textbooks, etc.);

3 hours of interactive teaching (small group work, role-plays, and critical discussions in small groups), and 19 hours of independent study based on the course reading list and materials provided in class.


There will also be meetings with a tutor to monitor progress and self-assess acquired knowledge. To ensure an inclusive learning environment, the lecturer offers up to two hours of office hours per week, available by appointment.

Mandatory for everybody
Liccione, D. (2013). Verso una neuropsicopatologia ermeneutica. Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia (RIFP), 4(3).

Zachar, P., Banicki, K., & Aftab, A. (2023). Historical and philosophical considerations in studying psychopathology. In R. F. Krueger & P. H. Blaney (Eds.), Oxford textbook of psychopathology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Severino, E. (2016). Cervello, mente, anima. Morcelliana Editore.

Oral Examination

TEACHING TUTOR:
Name to be updated. The tutor can be contacted for information and further discussion on course topics. The tutor is available to students for clarifications and deeper insights into the course material.

The topics of the Fundamentals of Psychopathology course will be addressed considering the ethical and deontological principles, which, depending on the specific topic, will be thoroughly explained by the instructor, both from a theoretical perspective and with direct connections to practical activities (e.g., through the discussion of illustrative cases).
$lbl_legenda_sviluppo_sostenibile