Psicologia e psichiatria di fronte alle emergenze: primi contributi italiani (terremoto di Messina e Reggio Calabria, 1908)

Abstract

This paper analyzes and discusses the first Italian psychological and psychiatric contributions, recently rediscovered, pertaining to the field of emergencies. In particular, it outlines a sort of prehistory of psychiatry and psychology of emergencies in our country, referring to contributions regarding the Messina and Reggio Calabria earthquakes in 1908, focusing on the psychic consequences of the disaster. It thus examines the writings of Giulio Cesare Ferrari, founder of the "Rivista di Psicologia", Guglielmo Mondìo, Vincenzo Neri and Giuseppe D’Abundo. Referring also to the cases reported by these authors, it describes the post-earthquake syndromes they found, despite a somewhat uncertain nosographic categorization at the time, and reports the theoretical debates proposed by some of the same authors. The work also deals with the state of Italian psychology in the early twentieth century, not yet practiced by psychologists in the full sense of the term, but by scholars with a medical, psychiatric and philosophical background. And mainly focused on purposes of knowledge rather than of application.

Keywords

• psychology
• psychiatry
• emergencies
• earthquake
• first Italian contributions