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PSYCHOTHERAPISTS in Italy, as in other Western countries, have for some years now been increasingly urged to ‘assume ideological responsibility’ and to become more aware of their role in the society in which they work. They are often subjected to criticisms which, theoretically at least, are not always justified, since these are aimed mainly at Freudian psychoanalysis, with which every form of psychotherapy is indiscriminately identified. Thus the cultural anthropologist C. T. Altan writes:
Psychotherapists today, for reasons which are in a certain sense independent of their will and intentions, are like surgeons on a battlefield who are obliged to patch up the wounded as best they can in order to return them as quickly as possible to the front to be killed. They have to do their best to return neurotic, and even psychotic, patients to a society in which life is frustrating and destructive: they hardly ever seem to ask themselves if life is worth living under conditions which are apparently those most conducive to early death from heart attack and psychosomatic disturbance (ALTAN I, p. 333).
Many psychotherapists, however, are alive to this criticism, for example S. Montefoschi:
The most aware among the psychotherapists today are worried that they may be acting against the freedom of the individual and in defence of the established order, since mental illness is considered to be a deviation from the norm and sanity to coincide with the behaviour of the majority, and this, within a given social structure, means conformity to roles sanctioned by that structure itself (MONTEFOSCHI 19, p. I).
G. Lai also traces the present crisis of psychoanalysis to it being unable to adjust its ideals to meet the new demands of a changing society. He sees the psychoanalyst as exposed to the danger of either compliance with the requirements of official institutions, thereby losing his autonomy in return for security and prestige; or, should he adopt a ‘clean hands’ policy, of remaining a p