About
Psychologist and psychotherapist.
I work in Florence and online with adults, couples and groups. I am also involved in training and research in Gestalt psychotherapy.
My work
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is first and foremost a matter of relationship, involving the whole of a person’s existence: the past continues to have effects, and the future appears in what is desired or feared. During a session, what happens is explored and experienced in relation to oneself, the therapist and whatever is encountered along the way. When something takes up almost the whole of experience, it becomes difficult to sense what else one wants. Therapy can open up that space again.
Roots
Philosophical roots
Gestalt psychotherapy has brought together different traditions. In my work, phenomenology, existentialism and complexity thinking guide both my attention and my practice.
Phenomenology
Starting from what appears
Phenomenology explores experience as it presents itself in the here and now, and the effect it has.
Attention shifts from why to how. Alongside the story, there is what happens as it takes shape: its effect in the body, the movement of emotions, the rhythm of words or an image that comes to mind. Experience can then reveal a meaning that could not have been known before living it.
Existentialism
Being in time
Each person arrives in the present with a history that opens up some possibilities and makes others more difficult. The past matters, and life is also lived towards the future: a desire or a project may draw a person in a direction that feels important. This is where choice and responsibility come in.
Being free means choosing within real conditions and taking part in what life offers. Responsibility gives back to the person the share of power they have; it does not seek someone to blame for what has happened.
Complexity and systems thinking
Keeping parts and relationships together
The body is not separate from the mind, emotions are not separate from thoughts, and what a person does acquires meaning within the relationships in which it happens. Complexity thinking invites us to hold together the part that is showing itself at a given moment and the world to which it belongs.
No one is an island. Understanding an experience requires looking at particular aspects of it while keeping in mind the history and relationships from which they arise. A change in even one part can affect the rest of life.
Between fields
Connections between clinical practice, research and training
I graduated with honours in Experimental Psychology and hold a Ph.D. in Nonlinear Dynamics and Complex Systems from the University of Florence. That education left me with the habit of following the path from a question to the claims one comes to make.
When psychotherapy became my main work, that background did not disappear: the questions changed. Knowing whether something works is not enough. The interest lies in understanding how, why and towards what purpose things happen, and in making visible what contributes to the unfolding of experience.
Teaching means returning to things that have become familiar in practice. Sharing them requires finding words and ways to show them; students’ questions can make them look different.
Today
PsychotherapyIn private practice since 2014, in Florence and online. Since 2017, I have collaborated with the Hermes project, which provides psychological counselling and psychotherapy at reduced fees. Registered with the Order of Psychologists of Tuscany, no. 6399.
TrainingTeaching at Istituto Gestalt Firenze since 2021, Centro Gestalt Viva Claudio Naranjo in Livorno since 2022, and Istituto Gestalt Puglia since 2026. I also collaborate with other postgraduate psychotherapy training schools recognised by the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR).
ResearchHead of research at Istituto Gestalt Firenze. Together with FISIG, I coordinate research in Gestalt psychotherapy, with projects on therapeutic processes and courses of therapy, supervision and training.
The book
Semplicità e complessità
In this book, I brought philosophy, science and Gestalt psychotherapy into dialogue, seeking a simple, concrete way to approach the complexity of experience without reducing it. The digital edition is available free of charge in Italian.