Sicily in the therapy room

Abstract

Cultural factors characterising the places of belonging, together with the family and personal development, constitute the history of people we meet in the therapy room (and that of the therapist as well). Drawing on this long-established idea, the author—a native Sicilian working and teaching in Sicily—identifies and describes two aspects characterising the Sicilian culture that he has encountered in his clinical practice. The first aspect relates to the phylogenetic imago of Sicilians in connection with their relationship to authority—particularly authorities representing the community, or favouring a social advantage. As written by Bufalino (2008), Sicily is in fact a ‘plural island’. There are many Sicilies, many cultural groups that do not identify themselves in a single social body. This pluralism is held together by personal interests and duties between individuals, in a dimension that excludes any social and public interest. Such a plurality has been maintained through the use of a code that would, in other social contexts, have to do with confidentiality; yet, it becomes omertà (a sort of act of silence) in Sicily. The author identifies the way this code expresses itself in the therapy room and how it interposes itself in the therapeutic relationship. The second aspect concerns the relationship of Sicilians with the Sicilian landscape and with the Etna volcano in particular. Sicilians—especially the ones living in Eastern Sicily—are connected to Mount Etna by sensory participation. The relationship between them and Etna is so full of affection, symbols and myth that it becomes part of their identity, manifesting itself in the therapy room through dreams.