Marco Michelini

I would like to try to look at a very frequent situation, the one in which there are often kids who are sick but live their request of help as a defeat. In organic medicine it doesn’t happen: I feel bad, my leg hurts and I go to the orthopaedist and there is nothing to be ashamed of. (This perhaps explains why the DSA – Specific Learning Disorders, which is much discussed on this blog, are so widely and uncritically accepted, after all they are now considered organic disorders).

But if I feel bad psychically, just the idea of going to the psychotherapist is often experienced as a failure of one’s life, something to hide without thinking that getting psychically ill is a specifically human characteristic.

IIndoors night. The suite of a hotel. A young man in the foreground is making a phone call on loudspeaker. He speaks in an annoyed tone. Behind him two large red curtains of heavy fabric decorate the windows. He wears a white T-shirt with a colourful design on. He has tattoos on the back of his hands as well as part of his arms. In addition to the phone, he also holds an electronic cigarette.

Summer 2020, I am invited to realize an installation of contemporary art at the “Nuovo Cinema Aquila” at Pigneto, an almost-suburban neighbourhood of Rome where many artists have found the place to produce their art. I meet at the “Nuovo Cinema Aquila” the rapper Amir Issaa, introduced to me by the director Massimo D’Orzi

From the encounter with Sara Lazzaro, thoughts were raised on the relationship between school and life that is lived outside of it.

The government has given priority to the return of students into classrooms even if the epidemiological situation is always uncertain. Why do the institutions push so strongly towards the return to teaching in the presence? Is this a real interest for adolescents, or is there any hidden thought towards young people?

Two “typically leftist” bank holidays have just passed on April 25^th and May 1^st and as usual between controversies, clandestine demonstrations and statements of singers who are elected in the new image of the left, the important questions passed in silence.

I state that this does not want to be a polemic article, but I would like for once to think again, to try to understand.

Last weekend I watched a new series, Nudes, which tells different stories but all related to the theme of revenge porn.

It made me think of a few years ago, when a person dearest to me was in the midst of puberty and to feel “older” posted on socials photos and videos that to my adult eye appeared “provocative”. I was very worried,

Newspapers, magazines, tv reports, social alarms, all talk about the increasing psychological malaise of teenagers during the pandemic: insomnia, anxiety, depression, social isolation, self-harm, suicide attempts.

But are we really sure it’s all because of the damn virus?

A little over a year ago, on 4^th March 2020, the first DPCM (Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers) was issued and it put us in front of something we would never have imagined. At first it seemed to be a matter of one, maybe two weeks but then it became more and more clear that it would have lasted a long. The virus was no longer just a problem confined to Wuhan and not even to Codogno, it circulated everywhere and the risk of contagion had suddenly become real.