Dr. Andreoli, why a book about love?
«Because in recent years I have heard this question asked hundreds of times by my patients, mostly very young: “But how can I recognize whether what I feel is love or not?”».
And Stefania Andreoli is a psychotherapist who does not receive in just one practice: she has the “physical” one, where she has practiced for years as a psychologist and analyst, but she also has the radio and television one (she collaborates with RadioDeejay and often goes on TV) and last but not least the social media, because on Instagram alone she is followed by 376 thousand people. Then the birth of her last essay of her is explained, You, me, love. Living relationships in the era of narcissism, Rizzoli. We talk about feelings and, inevitably given the training of the specialist (author of the best seller Perfect or happy), about parents and children. A book which, she insisted, is an impossible book.
Why?
«Because if as a psychotherapist I had to define the concept of love I would have to contradict many of the clichés so widespread today: love is not smooth, perfect and romantic. Love also has a toxic component, it also has a dark part, love can hurt and for this reason it transforms us. The point is that we must let ourselves be transformed and teach our children how to do it, with awareness and maturity. In one sentence: we take on the risk.”
It’s a shame that, as you say from the beginning, both children and families today set aside the risk, avoiding every hardship.
«It’s like this. Premise: I don’t judge anyone, because everyone is a father, mother, son or daughter in their own right. However, as an analyst, I observe: today the family gives its children a sticky emotional inheritance, which imprisons rather than liberates and does not teach us to love others, but only that which is family. It doesn’t make you want to leave and, therefore, take the risk of loving. To put it briefly: our generation was “loved” by its parents, today the children are “loved””.
There is a subtle difference.
«Slim but central. Our parents loved us, they passed on to us – in different ways – a set of rules for knowing how to live, but then we were free to rebel against paternal authority and go and look for love elsewhere. Not today, because the narcissistic family stages a narrative, even on social media, in which everything is born, grows and dies in this nest, in which everything must go well, everything must be resolved in there. There is no room for rebellions or even for tragedies. But love is born from this separation from the family of origin, literature and art have taught us this for centuries.”
Is it as if suffocating parents invested their children with a mandate, or an obligation of loyalty?
«Yes, this narrative made up of continuous declarations of love, of endearments, of exhibited attempts to make the children happy, of continuous intrusions into their lives, in the end nails the children to the unwritten law of having to give something back, given how much they have received. It glues them to being children and nothing more. And therefore they are deprived of the instinct to escape towards something else. That something that we older people called “love” and that today they don’t know how to define, because they don’t know the other’s need”
Hence the question “how do I know if I’m in love?”
«A legitimate question, because there is a lot of confusion among kids. I see them go from one infatuation to another, uncertain even about the identity that inhabits them. And how could it be otherwise? They are not driven to complete themselves, but to remain firmly on the pedestal of the family, because that is the true privilege.”
Furthermore, in a society that doesn’t want us alive but performing, all this also has consequences for work and other choices.
«Even in sex, if we want. Among my patients, those who do it are the parents, while the kids have given up. Mind you, I say “renounced” and not “chosen”, because they were exasperated by the parents’ interest in that field too. There is a paradox: to us of another generation, mom and dad recommended not to do it, therefore pushing us to want to make love. Today many parents worry about whether their children “function” well in bed.”
So what do they “perform”?
«Yes, that even in that situation they are perfect children. The normal reaction of a boy or girl then is to let it go. They cannot risk a sentence of inadequacy. This thing about kids not having sex, in my opinion, is worrying. Because the erotic experience is formative, as important as pain. And if they avoid both sex and pain, we should ask some questions.”
Ultimately, should we adults be braver and let them go? «I would say more disturbing. Less accommodating, less inclined to approval. Let’s encourage difference, let’s lead them towards each other, without fear.”
