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Capitolo Aperto, October 2026: we read “Farsi male. Variazioni sul masochismo” (Hurting Oneself: Variations on Masochism) by Vittorio Lingiardi One question runs through both clinical work and everyday life: why do we stay in a relationship that drains us, in a job that wears us down, in an image of ourselves that hurts us? And why, when things finally go well, do some of us feel the urge to ruin them? For our latest Capitolo Aperto, we read a book that tries to answer withou

Article written in collaboration with @nicolamilano.psi Introduction Jules and Jim does not show that loving as a threesome is impossible. It shows that no pact can suspend the way the psyche desires. François Truffaut’s film (1962), based on Henri-Pierre Roché’s semi-autobiographical novel (1953), follows for almost twenty years, from 1912 to the 1930s, the friendship between Jules and Jim and their love for Catherine, played by Jeanne Moreau. For 1960s audiences it was a ma

The Developmental Library, a community-led space dedicated to understanding human development across the lifespan, presents the first issue of its annual journal, Roots and Horizons, titled "The Therapeutic Being – Presence, Humanity and Relationship in Care." Released in October 2026 to celebrate the page's "birthday," the issue marks the start of an editorial project designed to endure over time: an annual journal that aims to become, issue after issue, a living archive of

Introduction to the column: The Unconscious of History History doesn’t end in textbooks. It survives in the institutions we inhabit, in the ways we think about care, in the language we use to describe those who suffer. “The Unconscious of History” starts from a simple conviction: understanding how the past built the psychological categories we use today (normality, deviance, therapy, exclusion) is a necessary clinical and intellectual act, not a nostalgic exercise. Each issue

1. Why writing is part of psychological work In psychology, the written text is often the only lasting record of what happened in an interview, an assessment, or a traineeship. The reader was not there: they know only what we write. A report is therefore not a bureaucratic formality but a professional act with real consequences. It can guide a clinical decision, a referral to another service, an educational pathway, or advice given to a client (Groth-Marnat & Wright, 2016; Li

Article written in collaboration with @uniticontroilbullismo Introduction Bullying is often thought of as a problem of childhood and adolescence, something that ends with graduation or a change of school. Research and clinical practice tell a different story: for many people, the weight of that experience continues to be felt in adulthood, often in quiet ways that are hard to trace back to their origin. In this article, we use the metaphor of knots to understand why bullying

Article written in collaboration with @taniacatasso_psicologa Introduction We talk about self-esteem all the time, often as if it were a quality you either have or don't. Psychological research describes it instead as a complex construct that forms through relationships, changes across the lifespan, and can be understood from very different perspectives. In this article I review the main theories and the most recent empirical evidence. What Is Self-Esteem? In psychology, self

Article written in collaboration with @marta.spaziopsico Introduction In everyday language, "you're too sensitive" often sounds like a reproach. In psychology, however, sensitivity is an object of study with its own theoretical history, measurement tools, and open debate. This article reconstructs the construct of Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS), discusses its empirical foundations and limitations, and draws some implications for clinical practice and for the well-being

Newsletter created by Erika Marchioro We like to feel consistent. We say: "This is just how I am." "I always react this way." "That's not for me." "I'm not the kind of person who..." Sometimes we say it with pride, sometimes with resignation, as if at some point we were handed a final version of ourselves and all that was left was to perform it. But how much of what we call character truly belongs to us? And how much of it was simply what we needed to get by? Maybe you became

Article written in collaboration with @taniacatasso_psicologa Introduction Bipolar disorder is a chronic psychiatric condition characterized by recurrent episodes of mania or hypomania and depression, with intervening periods in which symptoms are absent or subthreshold (Oliva et al., 2024). According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2026), about 36 million people worldwide were living with the disorder in 2023, including 3.3 million adolescents aged 10 to 19. Despite i

Article written in collaboration with @psicozy_ Introduction Over the past twenty years, the care of people with advanced illness has progressively broadened its scope, including not only the control of physical symptoms but also the patient's psychological, existential, and spiritual well-being. Dignity Therapy fits into this context. It is a brief psychotherapeutic intervention devised by the Canadian psychiatrist Harvey Max Chochinov and his research group at the Universit

Article written in collaboration with @taniacatasso_psicologa Introduction Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) occupies an ambiguous and in some ways paradoxical position in the history of psychoanalysis. On the one hand, it is described as a relatively "high-functioning" personality disorder characterized by grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). On the other, psychoanalytic clinicians attentive to intrapsychic

Article written in collaboration with @taniacatasso_psicologa Introduction The concept of "borderline structure" does not indicate an autonomous diagnostic category in the classical DSM-5 sense, but rather a level of personality organization, according to the theory developed from the 1960s and 1970s onward by Otto Kernberg (Kernberg, 1967, 1984). This psychodynamic perspective revolutionized the way personality disorders are understood, shifting attention from manifest sympt

Article written in collaboration with @taniacatasso_psicologa Introduction Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is among the most debated psychopathological conditions in contemporary clinical literature, suspended between a still imperfect categorical definition (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) and growing empirical evidence highlighting its phenomenological heterogeneity (Miller et al., 2017; Pincus & Lukowitsky, 2010). Understanding DNP requires combining at lea

Article written in collaboration with @maricagobbatelli_psicologa For an adult, knowing that a loved one exists even when they are not in the same room is obvious. For a young child, this certainty is by no means a given: it must be built, day after day, through thousands of micro-experiences of presence, absence, and return. This psychic process has a precise name in developmental psychology: object constancy. Two concepts that often get confused Before going into the merits

Trajectory of Luisa Zaccarelli, Psychotherapist Project Introduction — Trajectories Traiettorie is the newsletter of The Developmental Library, a community-driven space for anyone navigating the world of developmental and life-course psychology. Every month we give a voice to professionals and scholars who tell their story with authenticity: the daily work, the tools they use, the resources they find valuable, the questions that still run through them. We don't look for linea

Introduction Published in 1978 and based on interviews that journalists Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck conducted with Christiane Felscherinow, Christiane F.: Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (Hermann & Rieck, 1978), known in Italy as Noi, i ragazzi dello zoo di Berlino, is one of the most widely read texts on adolescence and addiction. Its strength lies in its lack of moralizing: Christiane recounts in the first person, from the age of 12 or 13, her path from the discotheque to heroin

Introduction to the series: The Unconscious of History History doesn't end in textbooks. It survives in the institutions we inhabit, in the ways we think about care, in the language we use to describe those who suffer. "The Unconscious of History" is born from a simple conviction: that understanding how the past built the psychological categories we use today — of normality, of deviance, of therapy, of exclusion — is a clinical and intellectual necessity, not a nostalgic exer

Newsletter created by Erika Marchioro There are stories that end, and stories that instead keep living inside us in the form of a question. Why did it happen? Why did they say exactly that to me? Did they really love me? Could I have done something different? What if I had stayed silent that time? What if I had understood sooner? We keep returning to the same point, convinced that somewhere there's a detail we haven't yet considered. A word to interpret differently. A forgott

Article written in collaboration with @mariadalpratogrosu.psicologa Pathological addictions are often understood, in common sense terms, as a matter of willpower or as a simple pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. Psychodynamic literature instead proposes a different interpretive key: the substance (or behavior) should not be understood only for its effects, but for the function it comes to serve in the person's psychic life. Beyond Pleasure: The Substance as an Emotional R