Theory in 60 Seconds

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 @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

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

Article written in collaboration with @psy.giusybua Human sexuality expresses itself along a spectrum far broader than common culture tends to acknowledge. Within clinical practice, the topic of paraphilias remains one of the most delicate to address, suspended between the need to depathologize atypical sexuality and the need to identify, when present, forms of distress or risk that require intervention. This article offers an overview of the topic, distinguishing the concept

Article written in collaboration with @psicoluce Introduction: A Growing Phenomenon Over the past few decades, burnout has evolved from a niche construct, initially studied in relation to helping professions alone, into a cross-cutting phenomenon recognized in virtually every occupational sector. This expansion has brought with it growing theoretical complexity: today burnout is understood not as a single stress reaction, but as the outcome of a multifactorial process involvi

Article written in collaboration with @dott.ssa_giuliagiulivi Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) was introduced as an independent diagnostic category in the DSM-5, replacing and expanding the previous definition of "feeding disorder of infancy or early childhood" (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Unlike anorexia and bulimia nervosa, ARFID is not driven by a desire to control body weight or shape, but by an avoidance or restriction of food intake that ca

Article written in collaboration with @dott.ssa_giuliagiulivi In recent years, the theme of "clean" eating has gained increasing space across social media, wellness influencers, and a growing cultural focus on what we eat. Within this context, orthorexia nervosa has emerged — a term first coined by physician Steven Bratman in 1997 to describe people whose extreme diets, intended for health reasons, paradoxically end up causing malnutrition or impairing daily functioning (Brat

Article written in collaboration with @tracce.psicologiche Aggression in young children is often experienced by parents as a problem to be corrected or eliminated. Psychoanalysis instead offers a more nuanced reading: aggression is not merely a behavior to be contained, but a complex phenomenon rooted in the very structure of drive and emotional life, one that takes on different meanings across the various stages of development. Freud: Drive Dualism and the Emergence of Aggre

Article with @taniacasso_psicologa Introduction For decades, the way Western culture has conceived of intelligence was dominated by a seemingly simple idea: intelligence is a unitary capacity, measurable through standardized tests and summarizable in a single number, the Intelligence Quotient (I.Q.). This model, born from the work of Binet and Simon at the beginning of the twentieth century and consolidated throughout the twentieth century, profoundly influenced school system

Article written in collaboration with @semidilettura The Prenatal Bond Through Reading Pregnancy is often experienced as a waiting — a suspended time between the present and the encounter with a being not yet seen, but who already exists, already perceives, already responds. Yet research in perinatal psychology and developmental neuroscience offers us a far richer picture: the baby in the womb is not a passive subject. It is a sentient being, actively listening to the world a

Article written in collaboration with @semidilettura Abstract Shared reading during the first three years of life is one of the most powerful and accessible practices available to parents and caregivers for supporting children's overall development. Neuropsychological and developmental research has consistently documented that reading aloud — particularly dialogic and contingent reading — produces significant effects on cognitive, linguistic, emotional, and relational develo

Article written in collaboration with @psicologa.luciacacace Introduction "I don't need anyone." At first glance, this statement might seem like an expression of strength, maturity, resilience. Yet when this belief becomes rigid — when asking for help causes discomfort, emotional closeness generates anxiety, and showing vulnerability feels unacceptable — we are dealing with something far more complex. The psychological literature describes this cluster of patterns with the te

Article written in collaboration with @chiaramarianipsi Abstract Eating disorders (EDs) — including anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge eating disorder (BED) — are among the most complex and misunderstood psychiatric conditions. Despite the robust evidence accumulated over recent decades, cultural narratives continue to attribute these disorders to personal weakness, vanity, or a lack of willpower. This article examines the neurobiological, psychological, a

Article written in collaboration with @hasnaa.tarik.psych Abstract Addiction is among the most misunderstood conditions in both clinical and public discourse. Commonly attributed to moral failure or lack of willpower, it is in fact a complex, chronic brain disorder rooted in neurobiological processes involving the dopamine reward system, stress-response circuits, and prefrontal regulatory mechanisms. This article provides an in-depth review of the neuroscience of addiction, e

Abstract This article proposes a psychoanalytic reading of the Italian comic trio Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo through the structural model of the psyche developed by Sigmund Freud in his second topography (1923). The three characters are interpreted as archetypal representations of the psychic agencies of the Id, Superego, and Ego, offering a clinically informed and accessible framework for understanding intrapsychic conflict, defense mechanisms, and the reality principle. In