How subjectivity can be investigated in the post-rationalist cognitive approach: clinical and psycho-diagnostic tools

Reciprocity with primary care-givers affects subjects’ adaptive abilities towards the construction of the most useful Personal Meaning Organization (PMO) with respect to their developmental environment. Over the last ten years we analyzed the post-rationalist approach focusing on the construction of a specific framework for distinguishing immediate experience from explanations of the experience, the slow-motion (“moviola”) technique, and the analysis of awareness and resistance. Neuroimaging (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fMRI), genetic polymorphism investigations and new psychodiagnostic post-rationalist tests (Mini Questionnaire of Personal Organization, MQPO, and Post-Rationalist Projective Reactive, PRPR) were used to conduct a scientific in vivo study of PMO. The presence of specific and stable clinical patterns both in inward and outward subjects was supported by parallel differences in cerebral activation during emotional tasks at fMRI and in the different expression of some polymorphisms concerning serotonin pathways; Furthermore, validation data concerning both a questionnaire (as MQPO) and, crucially, a projective test (as PRPR) allowed to distinguish four organizational profiles, confirming their adaptive significance in assimilation of experience. Focusing on the PMO promotes the emergence of adaptive individual resources, thereby improving skills needed to control perturbing emotions and to apply more flexible behaviour strategies. Keywords: Post-Rationalist Cognitive (PRC) therapy, Personal Meaning Organizations (PMO), Functional neuroimaging (fNI), Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP), Mini Questionnaire of Personal Organization (MQPO), Post-Rationalist Projective Reactive (PRPR)