15 years of professional activity!

This year I celebrate 15 years of psychotherapeutic activity! Some personal thoughts on my clinical work.

The patients met in these 15 years

In these years of professional activity, in the private sector, I have met over one hundred and fifty people.
The account includes both people who have undergone and completed a cycle of psychotherapy (ranging from a few months to a few years) and patients currently undergoing psychotherapy, as well as individuals who have come to my office even just once or individuals who have started and interrupted a consultancy.
In addition, I carried out numerous reception, evaluation and psychotherapy interviews during my work at an addiction service (Serd) in the city of Rome, which however I chose not to include in the count.
In these years, I have met so many people! These meetings, even the apparently less successful ones, nevertheless represented a great source of enrichment from many points of view, both on a clinical and human level.

Characteristics of patients

The people who, in recent years, have turned to me to ask for psychological support are aged between 14 and 65. Teenagers, adults, couples and parents of children asked for help.
Most live in Rome; a very small percentage live in Lazio. About half have a bachelor’s or master’s degree, the other half have a high school diploma.
As regards geographical origin, patients mainly come from central – southern Italy and only very few have northern origins.
Most of the people are Italian but I have interfaced with several people of various origins or with one of the two parents of foreign origins. I met people originally from Eastern Europe, Central or South America, Swiss, North Africans, Israelis.
Most of the people were studying or working, only a small minority were unemployed.

The reasons for the request

The reason why people ask for a psychotherapeutic support is usually, as it will not be difficult to guess, a psychological disease.
It can be a discomfort that is felt in relationships with others, with oneself and in various fields: family, work, social area, sentimental relationships.
In some cases, quite frequent to be honest, people come to counseling because they would like the other person (father, wife, son) to be “different”: this is also why it is very important to investigate what are the expectations of the person who is asking for help.

The expectations

The expectations relating to a therapeutic path must be realistic and suitable for the type of situation the person is experiencing.
What we psychotherapists can do, to support people in critical moments, is to identify the resources of the patients in front of us, enhance them and identify what, instead, are the “weak points” on which, in our opinion, they should focus on.
Another crucial aspect consists in improving the person’s levels of awareness; more generally, we psychologists work to ensure that the psychological well-being of the person, the group and the community is promoted and supported.
What we must NEVER do – and the code of ethics for psychologists also reminds us, is to replace the patient or give advice on how to act and behave.
We must always remember that the individual must be respected in his choices, encouraged to think, to take the initiative and to be autonomous in his decisions.
Finally, many times the decision seems difficult to make, in the eyes of those who consult us: in reality, it is already there, not seen but ready to be pronounced and the therapist’s task is simply to shed some light in the midst of the apparent darkness.

The richness of this profession

The profession of psychotherapists is truly unique. Our studios are small “laboratories” in which we specialists can observe a lot and learn even more.
Through our patients we can learn about contexts, worlds that would otherwise be unknown to us or known only through hearsay… thanks to this work, I feel like saying that I am decidedly richer in knowledge than when, years ago, I began to delve into “jungle” of the cerebral convolutions.

In the stories of our patients, who sometimes bring up burning, embarrassing content and for which they judge themselves harshly, we can find much of what we learned during our university studies but not only.
In the words of patients we can find ourselves, our suffering, our sensitivity to certain events. Through the narratives that in our work we are required to listen to with empathy and attention, we often discover unexpected things and learn to never take anything for granted.
As psychotherapists we may have read all the works of Freud, Lacan and Bion, but in addition to theory, practice is fundamental, which teaches us to welcome people into our rooms, to have the utmost respect for their stories and their choices (especially those we don’t agree with) and to listen to their stories with authentic, renewed, curious interest.

My journey since the ’90

In the second half of ’90, I enrolled in the Faculty of Psychology at La Sapienza University of Rome (which has now become the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology) and I chose “clinical and community” course. I completed a year of postgraduate internship at the CSM (Mental Health Center) Roma H (Ciampino).
After taking the State Exam, I signed up to the Lazio Psychologists Order.
From 2005 to 2009 I attended a psychoanalytic specialization school and since 2009 I have been registered as “psychotherapist”.
In 2015 I graduated in Philosophy (Roma Tre University).
Over the years, I have obtained training in Legal Psychology and in Psychological First Aid.
I have worked with deaf students, blind students and deafblind adults in Rome: Mason Perkins Deafness Fund, Roberto Wirth Fund, Sant’Alessio.
I have moderated some forums dedicated to Psychology and write psychological articles.

Article by Dr. Giorgia Aloisio, psychologist and psychotherapist (Rome).
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For consultations and psychotherapy, you can contact me on 3280194286.