To Be Human, This Intrigues Me

AbstractEustachio Loperfido (1932–2008), known as Nino, was an Italian child neuropsychiatrist whose contribution to the historic reforms of 1970s led to “a peaceful revolution” in mental health services. In Bologna, Loperfido directed a major maternal-child agency service for many years and, with his psychoanalytic training, added political activism to the clinical programs that improved women’s and children’s mental health and well-being. He was Bologna’s Councilor for Mental Health from 1970 to 1980; in 1968, as the new director of the town of Imola’s children’s residential institute (a de facto mental hospital), Loperfido started to modify the institution which soon was closed down. This took place within a new political climate where the subsequent well-known Law 180, inspired by Franco Basaglia, replaced public psychiatric hospitals with innovative community-based mental health services throughout Italy.Keywords: Psychoanalysis and societypsychoanalysis and educationchild psychiatryItalian reform movements AcknowledgementsI thank Pier Francesco Galli for his ongoing inspiring action and teaching; Anna Elisabetta Corsino, Cinzia Migani and Augusta Nicoli for giving me precious information and books; Giacomo and Giuliano Loperfido for sharing with me memories of their parents; Annalisa Chiesi, Paola Morra and Rudy Oldeschulte for carefully reviewing this chapter.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 From Pico della Mirandola, a 15th century Italian philosopher, whose essay written in Latin described a powerful belief in human initiative. In Pico’s time, humanists affirmed that men could pursue a new freedom of action without denying the religious principles of the Christian faith.2 Loperfido specialized in Psychiatry after receiving his degree in Medicine. The field of child neuropsychiatry emerged only in the 1960s, in select Italian universities.3 Carlo Gentili, professor of Psychiatry at the Medical School of the University of Bologna, was highly regarded as a teacher and researcher in neuropsychology, anthropo-phenomenology, clinics, psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. In the 1960s, he dedicated himself to the reform of Mental Hospitals, and his solutions were later accepted by the legislature. (Historical Archive, Bologna University).4 The National Health Service was created in Italy at the end of 1978 (Law 833, which includes a revision of the Law 180, the so-called “Basaglia law”, which had been approved the 13th of May 1978)5 A wing called “Stelline” was added for girls in 1753.6 In the 1960s, Italy witnessed the birth of an intellectual movement inspired by the psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, founder of Democratic Psychiatry, which brought about reforms and, eventually, a dismantling of psychiatric hospitals. An Italian state law (180/1978) is named for him.7 The profession of social worker, in modern Italy, emerged in 1946 with a Congress in Tremezzo. The social work role was redefined from a provider of assistance and charity to participation in a new system overseeing the prevention of social deviance. The mid-1960s brought a wider rethinking of the social worker’s function as an agent of change, specifically a structural change in capitalist society.8 Bianca Guidetti Serra (1919-2014) was a politically engaged lawyer who, in 1962, founded ANFAA (National Association of Adoptive and Fostercare Families) with Santanera and contributed to the new adoption law (Law 431, 1967) which aimed to place abandoned children in familiar environments. Francesco Santanera (1928-2022) was a surveyor dedicated to the rights of abandoned children and disabled people. He started a useful dialogue with the clerical authorities and wrote a public letter to the cardinals of the Vatican Council II (1962-1965), opened by Pope Giovanni XXIII and committed to a democratic transformation of the policy of the Catholic Church. 9 During the Nazi occupation of Rome, Ossicini saved dozens of Jews, hospitalizing them with false diagnosis at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Rome. He was awarded a medal of military merit to honor his participation in the Resistenza.10 In 1986 I interviewed Marcella Balconi and Benedetto Bartoleschi about the early years professional career. (“Gli inizi della psicoterapia infantile in Italia”, in Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, N. 3, 1986, pp. 315–319)11 Giovanni Bollea (1913–2011) was a medical doctor involved in Catholic Action. In 1938 he specialized in Neuropsychiatry but pursued humanistic interests after finding the Neurologic and Psychiatric Clinics too biologically oriented. Returning from his compulsory war service as a medical officer, Bollea merged medical and psychodynamic approaches to view psychological symptoms as needs expressed by both the individual and society. Along with Adriano Ossicini, he organized the profession of child neuropsychiatrist in Italy, and was appointed chair of Child Neuropsychiatry at the University of Rome in 1965. Bollea promoted a dialogue between psychiatry and education, and he joined the Communist Party to foster change in society’s view of childhood. In Italy, the new specialization supported the name “child neuropsychiatry” to underline the connection between neurology and psychiatry, whilst other European countries kept child neurology separate from child psychiatry. This meant that a child had to be considered as a unity, a bio-psychosocial person.12 Among Loperfido’s influences, the Italian sociologist Tullio Aymone (1931–2002), professor at the university of Trento, also merged the theoretical and the practical. See “Intellettuali, scienze sociali, realtà italiana”, Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, N. 4, 1967, pp. 607–618)13 Conceptually similar to the Federal government in the U.S.A.14 The Regions of Italy are the first-level administrative divisions of the Italian Republic. The Regions have limited political autonomy: under the Constitution of Italy, each Region is an entity with clearly defined powers. There are 20 Regions, 5 of which have greater autonomy.15 P.F.Galli directed the sections dedicated to psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis of two major Publishing Houses: Boringhieri e Feltrinelli. Both translated and published many important books by 20th Century foreign psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, including a complete edition of Freud’s and Anna Freud’s writings.16 “Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane” is now directed by Pier Francesco Galli, Marianna Bolko and Paolo Migone and is posted online in PEP Web.17 The Province is an administrative entity smaller than the Region and has some administrative powers in an area around a city. Imola belongs tho the Province of Bologna.18 “The subjects who present somatopsychic anomalies or abnormalities which preclude regular attendance in normal schools, and who need special treatment and medical-educational support, are sent to special schools. The subjects who are not severely mentally retarded, social misfits, or the subjects with behavioral anomalies, for whom the return to the normal school is predictable, are sent to differentiated classes” (DPR n. 1518 of 22 December 1967).19 Alessandro Ancona (1939-1997) was a psychiatrist and child neuropsychiatrist who worked at the psychiatric hospital Luigi Lolli in Imola. Like Loperfido, he embraced many areas, clinical, educational and political: he was a councilor first for the Province and later succeeded Loperfido as councilor for Social Security in the municipal government between 1980 and 1985. He was also director of the Ospedale Maggiore and responsible for one of the three Mental Health Services in Bologna. 20 Ancona detailed the situation of these children who weren’t accepted in the normal school. The criteria used for admission in “special” schools was coined during a regional conference titled “A politics for childhood: time for primary prevention in modern psychiatry” in which Nino Loperfido participated.21 The pedagogist, Andrea Canevaro (1938–2022) was a pioneering teacher of special pedagogy at the University of Bologna; he inspired many projects in inclusive pedagogy, of which this was an example.22 The number of children sent to differential classes, increased from 13.673 in 1958/59 to 65.624 in 1967/68.23 The creator of this model was Loris Malaguzzi (1920–1994). He wouldn’t have been able to realize his progressive ideas without the active participation of teachers, pedagogues and politicians of his town. The first pre-school program opened in 1971. In 1993 Malaguzzi received the Kohl International Teaching Award in Chicago.24 This word indicated children with a bad temper, or difficult to educate. It is no longer used.25 I thank Dr. Maria Giovanna Caccialupi who, as a psychologist and psychotherapist in Bologna and as Ancona’s wife, helped me reconstruct some of the events of those years. She was personally involved in the care of many children who were moved to family-like groups, and she is still in touch with some.26 Renzo Canestrari (1924–2017), medical doctor and psychologist, was one of the principal protagonists of the renaissance of psychology in Italy after World War II. He was a professor of Psychology at Bologna University.27 The diagnosis of “autistic spectrum” wasn’t yet in use.Additional informationNotes on contributorsAdriana GrottaAdriana Grotta, born in Milan (Italy) in 1951, is graduated in Italian Literature (Milan) and Psychology (Padua). She is in the register of Psychologists and Psychotherapists of Emilia Romagna (n.1075). In 1986 she has spent one year at the Anna Freud Center in London (one year course on psychoanalytic psychology and baby/child observation), which she continued to attend for many years (supervisions, diagnostic profile, International Colloquiums and conferences). She has been editorial secretary of the journal Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane (in the PEP Web), and, later, contributor with articles and reviews. She also curates a section of the journal on clinical cases (with Paola Morra and Euro Pozzi). She has been coeditor (with dr. Paola Morra) of two books: “L’utopia del possibile. Anna Freud tra pedagogia e psicoanalisi”. Bologna: Pendragon, 2017; “Bambini già adulti. Problemi dello sviluppo infantile al tempo di Internet”, Bologna: Pendragon, 2021. She works privately in Bologna and coordinates a multidisciplinary team. She teaches developmental psychoanalytic psychology at a school of specialization in Psychoanalytic psychotherapy (Milan, Trento, Foggia).