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Some reflections are made on the meaning of measurement in psychotherapy and on the relationship between the roles of technique and of the therapist's person. Parts of previous papers are also republished, namely some excerpts of the 1992 book La persona e la tecnica ["The Person and the Technique"] (reprinted in 2022 by the publisher FrancoAngeli of Milan) and of the preface, written in 1960, to the Italian edition of Harry Stack Sullivan's 1953 book The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry (La teoria interpersonale della psichiatria. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1961). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transcription of a paper given at the meeting "Psychological therapies for anxiety and depression: New forms of clinical and organizational integration" (Island of San Servolo, Venice, Italy, October 26, 2022) is published. After the description of the main characteristics of the English program Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), the importance of some aspects of the IAPT program are discussed, such as the following, among others: the reliability of guidelines; a national training program in evidence-based psychological therapies where also the therapists' competence is carefully evaluated; the collection and publication of all outcome data, that allowed the understanding and the solution of many problems (e.g., the differences in outcome among ethnic groups, the improvement of services located in socially deprived areas, etc.); the wellbeing and the level of motivation of the psychological therapists (about 10,000) employed in the IAPT services, where there should be leadership figures who do not give importance solely to treatments outcomes but are also able to create a stimulating and innovative environment characterized by the pleasure of working together, improving and learning new things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vicissitudes of a group of psychotherapy with adolescent patients, from its foundation to just over one year of work, bring to the attention of the conductor and of the observer of the group the suffered subject of the absence of the other. Depending on the analysed matter, and therefore at different levels, in this paper they retrace, listening also to their own countertransference, the trouble and urgency to match depressive and deadly experiences linked to absence and loss. Far from regarding the matter as depending only on the patients, the conductor and the observer ask themselves about the drives that have supported and influenced the birth and the definition of this group, which shows working features of its own, which are described in here. Then the hypothesis is suggested that a "joint" among different facts (such as the lack of a shared group culture in the institution where the group was born, the often small number of participants, the histories of the patients scattered with dropouts and also the tasks of adolescent development itself) have resulted in and allowed the group, if not to work through the matter of the absence of the other, at least to push on presenting it in different times and with different languages (interactions among participants, actings out, movie storytelling,...), aiming to expand increasingly broader areas of thinkability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 Pandemia is still in progress. Several long term consequences are to be foreseen on Mental Health too. International Institutions like WHO did'nt had a proper response to the challenge. So did Italians Institutions who payed poor attention to Psychological effects. Virus contagion and Fear and Distress have worked together and touched many people in several ways. The article will mention some of those: Change in Institutions, Losses and bereavement, childhood and adolescence, psychosocial risks. Some of the interventions revealed to be effective and will be mentioned at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper highlights the developments of the clinical dimension of Psychology undertaken and carried out by Renzo Canestrari since his entry into the School of Medicine of the University of Bologna, in 1961. The work describes the educational objectives, the lines of research, and the expansion of teaching in the academic institution. In this path Psychosomatic Medicine has represented a crucial disciplinary area and research field that worked as a point of convergence of medical and psychological needs, while encouraging the integration of different theoretical and methodological perspectives, such as Gestalt psychology, psychoanalysis, psychometric and psychophisiological approaches. This analysis of the scientific, institutional and professional events makes it apparent the close relationship between medicine and psychology, which provided a mutual advantage and favored the affirmation of clinical psychology in its academic, scientific and professional side. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the Author's works and papers concern the concept of "trans-subjective" in psychoanalysis. She has also an extraordinary experience of psychotherapies with victims of illiberal politic systems, or tortures or persecuted groups. In this paper, she addresses the problem of "The Stranger" and its connected ideological, juridical, and political foundations. These topics are seen as "the new discontents of civilization" (Kaës) and request a new paradigm for psychoanalysis (Puget). That's is the problems of "bindingness" or bounds, alliances and unconscious pacts involved unto the subject's unavoidable dependending and participating within the family group she/he belongs to with its prejudices. The Author speculates that the origin of the prejudice is the "anxiety of the eighth month" or "stranger's anxiety", seminal observable sketch of the feeling of belonging to the family group related to someone "outside" it, that is the psychic seed of somewhat unknown and new. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do we see when we observe a psychodynamic group with adolescents? The present paper tries to put in evidence three possible observational perspectives: centered on the single-case, on the group as a totality and on the intersubjetive interactions. The three points of view do not exclude each other and, if they are integrated, new hypothesis can be opened on the interrelations between individual and group functioning. The observation represents the main tool to understand and explore the group process while working with children and adolescents. For this reason it is necessary to reflect on how this tool defines the observed field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]