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Within a preventive framework, we outline a school-based intervention aimed at strengthening skills of survival and psychological functioning in children who have experienced war and political violence in the Gaza Strip. In accordance with a socio-ecological perspective on wellbeing and resilience, the pilot study aimed at evaluating the outcomes of a psychosocial narrative school-based intervention with a group of school-aged children in the aftermath of war. The intervention was oriented at empowering positive emotions, life satisfaction, and optimism in children as protective factors in preventing posttraumatic reactions after war. Findings showed the efficacy of the intervention in favoring life satisfaction in different ecological domains. Children in the intervention group showed greater appreciation for friends, school, family, themselves, and their living environment. At the end of the activity, children were increased the level of positive emotions, but negative feelings were stronger than before the narrative intervention. Clinical implications and future direction or community work are, then, discussed.

Abstract:Objectives: The scope of the study is to identify the leading "organization of meaning" in patients affected by aviophobia and the related attachment style. Specifically we hypothesized that participants with fear of flying would predominantly display a phobic organization of meaning, associated with an anxious-ambivalent attachment style.Methods: 150 adults, divided between an experimental group (FOF) and a control group (CON), completed three research instruments: two self-report questionnaires assessing attachment style (AAQ and ASQ) and the self-characterization, a qualitative constructivist tool. Results:The insecure attachment style prevailed in aviophobics rather than control group. Socio-economic and gender differences were found. The vocabulary used by the group with flying phobia featured a system of meaning referring to "freedom" family semantics.Conclusions: Attachment style appears to be a necessary but insufficient condition for predicting fear of flying. A greater role in the disorder is played by the organization of patients' personality, as argued by socio-constructionist and constructivist authors. Implication for clinical work and psychotherapy are discussed.