THE COPING POWER PROGRAM: TREATMENT AND PREVENTION OF DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIORS

Abstract

The present symposium includes presentations regarding the treatment and prevention of Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBD). DBDs, including Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Conduct Disorder (CD), are serious mental problems associated with a host of social, emotional, and behavioral problems, both current and later emerging, with high costs for the community. During the symposium the Coping Power Program will be presented, a multimodal intervention for reducing externalizing behavioral problems in children with DBDs diagnosis and its implementation process in Italian community hospitals, a mindfulness program for children with DBDs and their parents, and the adaptation of the Coping Power Program as a Universal prevention program. Specifically, the first presentation will introduce the Coping Power (CP) Program model and will provide a description of the CP sessions for children and their parents; the second presentation will present findings regarding the programs ability to reduce externalizing behavioral. The third presentation will report findings from a mindfulness program adapted for children with a DBD (aged 8-10) and parallel parent sessions. The 8-week mindfulness program was adapted for children with DBD from the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training. Child sessions included brief mindfulness practices and stories to convey principles. The mindful parenting intervention included mindfulness skills, conflict, compassion and mindful parenthood. The fourth presentation regards the adaptation of the Coping Power Program as a universal prevention intervention in Italian primary and nursery schools. Globally the results from 7 randomized control trials show the programs ability to reduce the externalizing behavioral problems in primary and nursery school children.

Professor Pietro Muratori is psychologist and cognitive behavioral psychotherapist. He graduated in Psychology at the University of Florence (Florence, Italy) in 2003 and he specialized in cognitive behavioral therapy at the Bolognese School of Cognitive Psychotherapy (Bologna, Italy) in 2009. He is an official trainer for the Coping Power Program since 2009: he received a specific training at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa (United States of America) with Prof. John Lochman. Currently, Prof. Muratori is a clinician and a researcher at the Department of Developmental Neuroscience at IRCCS Stella Maris Foundation (Pisa, Italy), where he dedicates himself to the diagnosis and treatment of children and adolescents with Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBD) diagnosis. He also leads parent-training interventions specifically addressed for parents of children with DBDs. In his research activities, Prof. Muratori mainly focused on the investigation of clinical profiles in children and adolescents with Disruptive Behavior Disorder. His research work also include the evaluation of the efficacy of treatment and prevention intervention models for externalizing behavioral problems, primary prevention of childhood aggression, and moral developmental in adolescents. He is Adjunct Professor of Developmental Psychology at University of Pisa, Italy and he is a lecturer at the Bolognese School of Cognitive Psychotherapy (Bologna, Italy). Additionally, he often teaches at formation seminars and classes at public and private organizations.