Hansel e Gretel centre
Sunday May 25, 2008
Dear Ms Alice Miller,
Let me introduce myself. My name is Claudio Bosetto, I am a primary school teacher and the President of ‘Centro Hansel e Gretel’. This centre, a non-profit association active in the care of children, has been operating in Italy for over twenty years and can call on the help of psychologists, psychotherapists, teachers and probation officers. Its work involves providing psychological help, supervision and support to children who have suffered psychological, physical and sexual abuse. We also provide (organize) training on feeling to be an outsider, ill-treatment and listening in educational relations.
Our Centre was created in the attempt to bring together an adult’s reflections and repressed childhood experiences, so our cultural approach draws on your works on the analysis of child abuse and ill-treatment, on the studies of Ferenezi and Kohut, on the relational psychoanalysis, trauma psychology and psychodrama of Getsalt as well as the active listening of Gordon, the concept of emotional intelligence of Peter Salovey, John Mayer and Daniel Goleman and awareness psychology and oriental psychology.
Thus, our cultural dedication and work brings together the theoretical and technical contribution which, starting with yours, highlight the role of relationships as the origin of mental suffering and favour the interaction of reason and emotion.
We would be very interested in exchanging views with you and this could be arranged in various ways.
— Our Centre is organising a Conference to be held in Turin, Italy in September 2009, entitled “Caring for oneself is the first help. Take care of oneself in order to care for children” for all those interested in providing professional and voluntary help.
The Conference’s key theme , which is also the basis of our Centre’s research and growth, will be the belief that caring for oneself is the first step in caring for others, as this is the source of one’s resources and energy to deal with the relationships involved in helping others. The Conference’s aim is to stimulate research into methods, approaches and experience through which it is possible to care for a child’s unease, take him or her in our care, make him or her cry and make him or her smile.
— Should you not be able to take part at the above mentioned Conference we would like to arrange and record an interview on video which could be used at the Conference and at ad hoc meetings.
— We would also be interested in having you as guest at a meeting which would be centred on your work
— Finally we are interested in translating into Italian, for publication on our web site www.cshg.it some of the contributions which are available on your site
We thank you in anticipation of a reply and look forward to meeting you.
Yours sincerely
(Claudio Bosetto)
(President Centro Studi Hansel e Gretel)
AM: Thank you for your letter and your kind invitations to come or to give an interview. First of all I want to tell you that I am glad to hear that you are active in Italy because I have been often asked if psychoanalysis is the only group that exists in your country. Then I must tell you that I no longer travel and don’t give any interviews because everything I wanted and want to say is already available on my website. But if you want translate some of my articles and publish them on your website you are free to do so, provided that you respect my copy-right and make it clear that I DID NOT authorized the translation because I don’t understand Italian well enough. Under the same condition ALL my flyers are free, you can translate them, publish them or distribute them among institutions that work with children or parents. You have nothing to pay for these texts, but I would like to know which ones you have chosen. I think that if you can make my texts available to many professionals who are still stuck in the traditional way of thinking you have done more for children than if I came to Turin or if you had done a video interview. My website contains a lot of information, and people need time, even much time, to read and reread them so that they really understand and can use them for their work. A meeting with me will never provide that. And many interviews I gave are also published on the website. With best wishes and thanks for your work.