L’intervento psicologico clinico come mitopoiesi

The work aims at analyzing the relationship between the classical conception of myth, the proposal on them by Roland Barthes and a new interpretation of the myth within the psychoanalytic theory, based on the collusive process. The proposal is to establish a function of the myth within the systems of social coexistence and of relationship with social power

La cultura dei servizi di accoglienza migranti in Italia. Una ricerca esplorativa [The culture of migrant reception services in Italy. An exploratory research]

Italy has a long history of immigration, which has become part of the country’s landscape in a complex and varied way, and has led to significant changes in important contexts such as in the school, the work place, and in the provision of welfare services. And yet, immigration policies still consist in emergency measures that do not recognize the phenomenon in its long -standing and structural dimension. In addition, public opinion is concerned as a result of the alarmist distortion of this issue, as shown by the gapbetween data on immigration and perceived immigration. Since in this research we take into consideration collusively shared experiences, these misunderstandings can not be corrected by providing more information on the real data; we posit that the emotional scope must be recognized in order to address this issue. In particular, we asked ourselves how this context -changes brought by immigration, public opinion, and government policies -is repre sented within the migrant Accordingly, we interviewed a group of reception staff from the Roman area on the type of service that they think they are offering. The results show how, in their experience, this complex reality of immigration is not evoked: the experience within the services is isolated from the Italian narrative and context. However, the voice of migrants and their point of view, emerge as a resource within these services, as openness rather than isolation

La rappresentazione del rapporto tra utenti e sistema sanitario: I modelli culturali dei medici di medicina generale - The representation of the relationship between users and healthcare system: Cultural models of general practitioners

The present research study explores the emotional and symbolic representation of the Italian healthcare system and specifically of general medical services reported by a group of Italian general practitioners. General medicine is recently affected by a structural change which could be sustained also by a cultural revolution, however this revolution seems to be oriented to expected values without a clear methodology which promotes and accompanies this cultural change. The present study deals with the lack of practices due to these unrealized expected values and assumes that for intervening it is necessary knowing the existing culture before thinking to change it. Interviews to 36 general practitioners were analyzed by Emotional Text Analysis (AET). Results highlight a factorial space characterized by five clusters. According to respondents’ perspective, healthcare problems refer to two large issues characterized by powerlessness of general practitioners to intervene. On the one hand, there is health emergency, dealt with by first aid and emergency medicine. On the other hand, there is chronicity, especially affecting the elderly, which is dealt with by other workers (nurses, private family assistants, social workers) who care patients at home and replace physicians. The general practitioners’ work is difficult because of many different reasons; but the central theme is the lack of absolute power – based on morality and consciousness – which leads to the perception of catastrophic consequences for medical profession and the physician-patient relationship. Often, general practitioners are in their offices and are not able to go to patients’ home, therefore they cannot create care relationships based on trust and dependence which allow useful and trustworthy interventions. In sum, the core theme emerging from data refers to the general practitioners’ perceived lack of personal and trust-based relationships with patients

La relazione che organizza il contesto sanitario: domanda dell’utenza e risposta dei servizi sanitari, nel territorio e nell’ospedale - The relationship which organizes the healthcare context: users’ demand and response of healthcare services, in the territory and the hospital

Our intent is to present citizens’ demand of health care services in Italy through a research structured in three studies. We used the Emotional Text Analysis (ETA) to lead the three s tudies: the first study regarded the citizens’expectations of the healthcare services, the second study regarded the point of view of the hospital personnel (medical doctors and nurses), the third regarded the point of view of the General Practitioners onthe health care services. These three studies are briefly presented. Data and outcome of an Assumed Similarity Test applied to all experimental subjects of the three studies in order to make a comparison among them, are also presented. The findings of the Emotional Text Analysis show that citizens, potential users of health services, center their requests on their individual subjectivity, and seek answers both to their suffering and to the feeling of alienation that characterizes the being sick feeling that makes them go to a medical doctor. For their part, general practitioners and hospital doctors immediately transform this subjective feeling in an objective medical diagnosis. Here a first gap emerges between patient’s demand and medical response, leavingthe possibility of an alliance on the diagnosis in order to jointly fight the disease. It has long been in place though a change that has expelled the patient also from sharing the diagnostic process, increasingly taken from self-centered dynamics within the healthcare system. This widens the gap between the request of the citizens and the response of the health services, that contributes to that conflictual growth to which defensive medicine gives a dysfunctional answer. The Assumed Similarity Test contributes to the interpretation of the health care dynamic identified in the Emotional Text Analysis; particularly in regard to the unfolding conflict, given by the hypothesis emerging from the data analysis, that a feeling of closeness for the hospital personnel goes along with an emotional stance of overpowering the othe

The relationship between health care users’ demand and the health care system’s response: a research on change observed in the health care system, in the hospital and in the territory

The present research study aims at exploring the representation of the health service within a group of hospital physicians and nurses. The objective is to identify how the symbolic dynamic of hospital workers shapes their own praxis. The texts of interviews with 25 hospital workers have been subjected to Emotional Text Analysis (ETA). Five clusters emerge from the analysis where the topic of giving life and avoiding death is central and where the hospital assumes a thaumaturgical and basically omnipotent role. This is in conflict with recognizing the limitations of therapy. Only in the background the culture of curing the patients appears, characterized by aggressive reactivity towards the crisis which leads patients to emergency intervention because crises are ascribed to deviances frommedical prescription. Emergency intervention is ultimately the kind of intervention which the hospital believes it is capable to provide. Another problem is the lack of filters provided by bureaucratized general practitioners, whose cooperation would be essential, but who are supposed to have no longer the necessary relationship with their patients

L’Islam e la sua rappresentazione nella cultura italiana

Different groups of citizens from Latium region, distributed by gender and age, and belonging to the medium-high socio-economic-cultural class, were asked in 2002, 2004 and 2005 to express what was coming to their mind, their associations and fantasies about Islam and islamic populations. The data were processed with the Emotional Text Analysis. The results of these three research studies are presented, which show a progressive accentuation of the pejorative stereotypes towards the islamic populations

Emotional textual analysis

Emotional Textual Analysis (ETA) analyzes the symbolic level of texts as a part of applied research and interventions. The method is based on the study of the association of dense words, words that convey most of the emotional components of texts. In this approach, language is thought of as an organizer of the relationship between the individual contributor of the text and his or her context, rather than as a detector of the individual’s emotions. A case example shows the use of ETA, with the assistance of specific software, in analyzing the interviews of the inhabitants of a city suburb with respect to their expectations of fulfillment and development in relation to perceived local opportunities

La valutazione della genitorialità. una ricerca esplorativa, per capire come venga vissuta da un gruppo di cittadini romani

This paper reports the data of an exploratory research conducted with a group of Roman citizens who were asked what they thought about the possibility of assessing the parenting of families considered at risk over the parental expertise. Citizens were interviewed and the interviews were submitted to AET, Emotional Analysis of the Text. Assessing parenting often involves families with internal conflicts. We think the conflict is not only there. Conflicts also cross the theoretical, legal, and political hypotheses, which base the opportunity to intervene within the issues involved in parental evaluation. They are also found in the relationship between families and services. Legal and sociological literature advise the presence of these conflicts and discuss the issues; whereas the psychological and psychiatric one is focused on the application of techniques, whether they are evaluation, psychotherapy, re-education. This perspective does not consider the conflicting complexity which founds the parental evaluation, but it is focused only on the family. We were interested in analysing, in this context, what is the citizens’ perception of the evaluation of parenting, who are their potential customers and users; in particular, if and how these conflictual dynamics are perceived by them. After the analysis of the interview, the data outline three cultures. One proposes the traditional Italian family, the feminised family and designated to the care of members in difficulty within the home wall; family today in a strong crisis within processes of change. Another proposes the centrality of the court and the legal culture, founded on evaluations and resolving actions that often can result in child custody actions. These two cultures contrast: when the traditional family is missing, the court appears. There is no counseling which concerns the changes of the family. Psychological and neuropsychiatric counseling agencies do not appear in the data, except for social services, in any case subordinated to the court. A third culture proposes an “ideal” adult, who with balance and reflection skills, has to face a fearful context, but it is an isolated individual, without a relational context of reference. This culture seems to opposite the dissolution of relational contexts – state, organizations, family – to the idealized individual, self-determined and alone. The development of psychological function in the assessment of parenting concerns two aspects: the importance of studying the complexity of the social mandate and the intervention with the conflicting relationships of the family and of all the other actors involved

La cultura locale di Roma e delle sue periferie urbane nella rappresentazione dei resti archeologici - The local culture of Rome and its urban suburbs in the representation of the archaeological remains

Nel presente lavoro viene proposta l’analisi della relazione come luogo del problema che caratterizza l’intervento psicologico clinico quale alternativa alla diagnosi. Tre esempi clinici aiutano a cogliere come la relazione sia il luogo del problema che s’intende affrontare; sia con il lavoro d’assistenza in ambito familiare, che scolastico o sociale. La funzione psicologica può cambiare radicalmente il lavoro assistenziale, mutando obiettivi inutili e obsoleti in interventi efficaci. Ciò è possibile se l’intervento cambia il proprio obiettivo, spostandolo dalla singola persona disabile o problematica, alla relazione entro la quale l’intervento si contestualizza.The research, carried out within a project research of national interest (PRIN) directed by archaeologist Professor Clementina Panella, has the purpose to detect the local culture of inhabitants of the center and the outskirts of Rome, paying attention to the archaeological remains and their cultural contribution. Three components of local culture emerged in this research; all of them are reported to a cultural context that people feel as organized by the pursuit of power and the enhancement of the mass media as factors that give notoriety and popularity then power. One of the three cultural repertoires, characterized by young participants and residents in the outskirts of Rome, enhances the archaeological remains as components of a fun culture. The fun, in combination with culture, is experienced as an effective alternative to the power and the pursuit of powe

The rapid spread of SARS-COV-2 Omicron variant in Italy reflected early through wastewater surveillance

The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant emerged in South Africa in November 2021, and has later been identified worldwide, raising serious concerns. A real-time RT-PCR assay was designed for the rapid screening of the Omicron variant, targeting characteristic mutations of the spike gene. The assay was used to test 737 sewage samples collected throughout Italy (19/21 Regions) between 11 November and 25 December 2021, with the aim of assessing the spread of the Omicron variant in the country. Positive samples were also tested with a real-time RT-PCR developed by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), and through nested RT-PCR followed by Sanger sequencing. Overall, 115 samples tested positive for Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant. The first occurrence was detected on 7 December, in Veneto, North Italy. Later on, the variant spread extremely fast in three weeks, with prevalence of positive wastewater samples rising from 1.0% (1/104 samples) in the week 5-11 December, to 17.5% (25/143 samples) in the week 12-18, to 65.9% (89/135 samples) in the week 19-25, in line with the increase in cases of infection with the Omicron variant observed during December in Italy. Similarly, the number of Regions/Autonomous Provinces in which the variant was detected increased from one in the first week, to 11 in the second, and to 17 in the last one. The presence of the Omicron variant was confirmed by the JRC real-time RT-PCR in 79.1% (91/115) of the positive samples, and by Sanger sequencing in 66% (64/97) of PCR amplicons. In conclusion, we designed an RT-qPCR assay capable to detect the Omicron variant, which can be successfully used for the purpose of wastewater-based epidemiology. We also described the history of the introduction and diffusion of the Omicron variant in the Italian population and territory, confirming the effectiveness of sewage monitoring as a powerful surveillance tool