Italian
Psychiatrist and President of the Italian Society for Training in Psychiatry (SIFP), Francesco Valeriani provided a clear and unsettling analysis of the psychological and cultural risks of the contemporary world at the International Conference of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, identifying narcissism and the reduction of the other to an object as the deep roots of social fragmentation.
VATICAN CITY. “In this fragmented world, with social cohesion at risk, with the credibility of reality also at risk, human life is in danger”. With these words, Francesco Valeriani, psychiatrist and President of the Italian Society of Training in Psychiatry, opened his contribution to the 2026 International Conference of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation.
The danger it describes is twofold: on one hand, that of “deindividuation”, the process by which the subject
At the center of his analysis is what he defines as “a creeping narcissistic ideology that is spreading”. A drift in which
The diagnosis is bitter but precise: “The totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century have fallen, but this one can be much more dangerous because the concept of the self that needs a you in the relationship is lost.” The authentic relationship, one that recognizes the other as a subject with their own freedom and responsibility, is the true victim of this drift.
In the face of this crisis, Valeriani points to a deep convergence between psychiatry and the social doctrine of the Church: “The social doctrine of the Church fully converges on this culture of otherness, the culture of the other”. The other not as an object, but as a dialogue partner, as a person with inalienable dignity and subjectivity:
The therapeutic relationship thus becomes a model: a space of mutual giving, where the therapist gives themselves to the other and the other shares their expectations, anxieties, and hopes. A model that is valuable far beyond the counseling center — and that society, in the era of digital loneliness and the need to appear at all costs, urgently needs to rediscover.
