“It’s just that all the hardships he has faced have made him more appreciative of the simple things — he’s happier than us.”
Tag: naples
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A Very Neapolitan Kind Of Halloween
Instead of going trick-or-treating, our Naples-based psychiatrist asks herself a dialectal question.
“Dottoré, if today is to be my last lunch …”
“Antonietta, I’m completely fine. Don’t you even think of bringing me a nightgown.”
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Delusions Of Grandfather
“And where is your grandson?” — “Who knows. He must be old by now.”
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Sowing The Seeds Of Paranoia
“They must be dumping garbage — good, it makes for good fertilizer!”
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Of Rats And Men
Our Naples-based psychiatrist remembers a 2019 conversation with a patient on the geopolitics of pest control.
Charity may begin at home, but for our Naples-based psychiatrist, it also begins behind the wheel.
“Dottoré, do you have 1.50 euro by any chance?”
Our Naples psychiatrist’s view on unrealistic social media standards, feeling inadequate, and the price of happiness.
“Who do you think I am,” our Naples psychiatrist asks her patient, “a priest?”
A psychiatrist unpacks her relationship with driving, and her dad.
“There’s still a pulse,” they told me, surprisingly.
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A Very Neapolitan Hatred For Summer
Volcanic outburst about heatwaves and impossibility to cool off.
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Naples Wasn’t Built In A Day
“Do you realize that this changes everything for me?”
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The Walls Of A Loving Home
Ciro was waiting for me at the hospital entrance. He had been told the psychiatrist was coming. “Dottoré, please let me come up with you, I need to see him and tell him I love him.” Two days earlier, he had found his father lying in a pool of blood. He did not understand why […]
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A Sound Mind In A Sanitized Body?
Trying to put the “health” in “mental health” …
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Mightier Than The Sword
“What am I supposed to do with this, Dottoré?”
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Far From The Tree
“Mamma, do you know that when I grow up I want to be a surgeon?” “And wouldn’t you like my job instead?” “Mamma, fixing broken heads is impossible. That doesn’t interest me at all!” Elias is 5 years old. He has already understood everything. Learn more about Worldcrunch’s exclusive Dottoré! series here.
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Photographic Memory
Flipping through the pages of an old photo album with my nonna, I asked her, “Grandma, why were you all in black and white when you were young?” She replied, “The war broke out. One morning we woke up, and all the colors were gone.” Learn more about Worldcrunch’s exclusive Dottoré! series here.
Hatred cannot be cured.
Fifteen years ago, Francesco kept busy by scamming people. He was a regular visitor to the beaches of Terracina, south of Rome, where he was caught several times selling counterfeit Ray-Ban sunglasses. Then came the drugs, which fed a serious substance-induced psychosis and eventually he tested positive for HIV. It’s around that time that I […]
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Don’t Anger The Patron Saints Of Calcio
From St. Paul to St. Diego…
To each mental illness, its castle.
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A Cave Of One’s Own
“Who am I to be horrified by poverty while I have no means to offer relief, no alternative to show these people?”
The scenes of the welcoming of Ukrainian refugees in Italy have been deeply moving. I was particularly struck by the choral embrace in a Naples elementary school classroom of a beautiful child, happy but also embarrassed because he did not speak Italian. It brought me back to a story that Chiara, a young patient of […]
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In Troubled Times, What People Want
People don’t give a damn about Putin, NATO, Ukraine, communism, democracy, freedom, gas, oil, national sovereignty, ideals. They don’t give a damn about each and every word, thought or opinion. People are just afraid of war. People want to live. ____________________________ Learn more about Worldcrunch’s exclusive Dottoré! series here.
Dear President Zelensky, I am a psychiatrist, not a politician — though when it comes to the madmen of battle (in the fields of health, fortunately), I have fought more than you. I would like to explain to you a fundamental aspect of my work: when it becomes necessary to convince a patient who refuses […]
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Requiem For A Stray Cat
At the mental health center where I work, we have always taken care of the area’s stray cats. Birba had been around for a few years. A few minutes ago, a boy walked in — one of those boys you see in the street, like so many in our city’s Sanità neighborhood. He looked upset. […]
“Can’t you see it’s a movie? It’s all fiction. Stop crying.”
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Marriage Ain’t What It Used To Be
Women today, and the limits of tolerance…
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A Doctor’s Privilege
A rainy day. On the television, people are talking and talking and talking. I get ready to go to work. I’ll have to knock on some doors, and people will let me in with a smile. What a privilege to be a doctor. Worlds that are revealed to you and, occasionally, universes that open wide. […]
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Self-Cure In The Kitchen
I pass by the old lady who lives downstairs. “Dottoré, yesterday I wanted to knock on your door because I wasn’t feeling well”. “What was wrong?” “I don’t know. I felt a strange sadness, like a void inside, then started having palpitations! So, to distract myself, I prepared a nice parmigiana.” “Well done! And how […]
Sure, Naples has sun, sea and amazing pizza. But it’s also violent and corrupt, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. A look from Italian city’s celebrated author.
In Sunday’s stunning national elections, the former leftist stronghold near Naples joined the outsider revolt against the political establishment. What comes next, however, is still not clear.
Already a victim of organized crime and drug trafficking, Naples is now also facing wanton violence from disillusioned youth.
We shine the spotlight this week on Italy: MAFIA IN ROME A second wave of corruption arrests has swept the Italian capital, with several local politicians charged with involvement in what has been dubbed Mafia Capitale. According to investigators, a criminal organization headed by a former fascist terrorist with links to the Naples mob collaborated […]
Why can’t the Italian state take better care of one of the world’s most treasured archeological sites? A tour of ancient artifacts, contemporary degradation and out-of-order bathrooms.
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Naples, The Beauty And The Horror
Luigi De Magistris, a left-leaning former prosecutor, was the latest would-be savior for the troubled Italian city. But look around, things in Naples are worse than ever.