Alessandro Pedrazzi

I was born in Milan in 1976, and I think I realised pretty early on that I would spend my life listening to other people's stories, trying to make sense of them. I'm a psychologist, psychotherapist, and author, and over time I've chosen to focus primarily on the intricacies of relationships: intimate ones, those between couples, and those that play out in an office without anyone, apparently, noticing. I coordinate the CISL Milano-Metropoli Workplace Bullying and Stress Help Desk, and it's here, along with my private clinical practice, that I've learned just how fine the line is between everyday stress and true suffering. In my work, I meet people every day who live with anxiety, depression, and the subtle manipulations of bonds we call "affection" simply out of laziness. And it is with them that I continue, one session at a time, to ask myself how we can learn to breathe again.

As well as my clinical work, I love doing outreach. On my website, psicologoinrete, and on social media, I try to make complex concepts accessible without oversimplifying. On YouTube, I've started making in-depth psychological series, as I've found that the voice and the rhythm of storytelling can sometimes convey what a written page alone cannot.

Then there's cinema, which is my long-standing, unwavering passion. I set up EXXAGON, a film review site for horror, cult and non-mainstream cinema, back in 2004. It's got over two thousand reviews now, and I recently gave it a bit of a makeover. On the site, I combine my love of cinema with psychology, offering in-depth analyses of films and also curating the column "Falling Stars" – a biographical research project on actors who died tragically or at a young age. It's a small ritual of remembrance where my clinical sensibility and my love for the history of cinema come together, and perhaps, deep down, explain one another.