Apresentação geral:Research line overview

The professional group which constitutes the research Line “Relationships, Development and Health”, although officially integrated within this project in May 2007, has already been working in cooperation for several years, especially its senior members. Throughout these last years, some younger researchers have progressively joined the initial team, until it assumed its current composition. 

We are best defined by the diverse academic background of our members (from different areas such as Psychology, Medicine, Mathematics and Nursing) and we are all united by the same interest on Health in general, and on Mental Health and Psychological Adaptation in particular.

Besides the embracement of the Developmental Psychopathology approach as an organizing macroparadigm for scientific research as well as for clinical practice, we are concerned about the diversity of (dis)adapative developmental pathways; the multiple contexts that determine adaptation outcomes, especially the interpersonal ones; and the processes and mechanisms of individual adaptation to stressful events (normative, like parenthood; or unexpected, such as a health condition).

Within this perspective, the significance attributed to the areas of positive functioning (e.g. Quality of Life) and those related to the adaptive skills to adversities (resilience), has been well established in the studies carried out till the moment. We are also defined by a strong connection between research and intervention fields, since our projects are developed from the direct contact with clinical practice, and a considerable concern is devoted to the feedback provided by our research to the target populations and contexts (professionals, patients and general population), in order to deliver relevant products on the studied themes. The development and validation of psychological assessment tools is also emphasized in this team’s work.  

In this website we intend to share, now in a more global and technological fashion, both with the scientific community and the general population, our latest pathway.

Maria Cristina Canavarro