Reporting of BastaBugie editorial team
Interview with psychologist Silvio Rossi, author of the book ”The Lords of the Ring. Guide to family life”
Of Giuseppe Brienza

Silvio Rossi, Experienced psychologist and psychotherapist (ha 25 years of study activity as well as serving the public administration) wrote the book “The Lords of the Ring. Guide to family life in small notes”, published by the Catholic publishing house “D'Ettoris Editori”. His was defined by the writer Paolo Gulisano “a brilliant book” e, really, his “a sort of Ennio Flaiano of psychology”, for the originality and vividness of the contents, starting with the chosen title.
The Ring he speaks of, Indeed, it is not of course that of Sauron, the evil character par excellence created by the English writer Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings, rather that golden circle that seals a communion of life forever between a man and a woman who love each other and aspire to become parents. The wise man collects 107 short and lightning-fast “note” for a healthy and politically incorrect family life, overall distilling some precious truths about the family, largely denied or forgotten today. In Terris interviewed him on the occasion of the feast of the Holy Family.
His essay seems to confirm this, from the point of view of marital and family life, what G said. K. Chesterton, i.e: “A dead thing goes with the flow, only a living thing can go against the flow”
I agree, the family is not only a living reality but is also the natural environment for welcoming and safeguarding life and, in this sense, is called today to go decidedly against the current and to be non-conformist by nature. The family opposes the dictatorship of political correctness with the education of its children, to whom it offers training in autonomous and free thinking. With this also sometimes paying the price of isolation and unpopularity. Chesterton also said that the time would come when people would fight to prove the obvious. I would say that this is our time and that the family must go against the grain to protect its very existence and its future..
In fact, at a certain point in your book you write a “prophecy” for the future that, theme, not many would sign up. That is to say, Surely, the future “it belongs to the family and to those who work for it”, what does it mean?
I want to say that the family is inherent to the human being and is not a superstructure’ linked to a specific historical period that, Perhaps, it was valid once upon a time and can now be easily put aside or replaced with alternative forms of coexistence. The family is the founding social value of every other community value and, therefore, ultimately attempts to fight it will be unsuccessful. The destruction of the family would necessarily coincide with the destruction of man and society. But certainly the needs of human ecology will prevail and there will be a future and it will be assigned by the rediscovery of the family.
In the Italian family (at least the one that resists) there is a tendency to spoil children, even when they are adults (you see the phenomenon, all Italian, of the “big babies”). How and when parents should make their children independent? What is the right age, from a psychological point of view, to leave their family of origin and form their own
There is no precise moment when adolescence ends and adulthood begins. Human maturation is a continuous progression towards autonomy and independence, in the end, you feel within yourself that the time has come. The problem is another and that is that today some parents rely on their children for their own psychological survival. I'm talking about parents who have not been able to express an identity regardless of their children and who, Therefore, they need to keep them close to have a reason for living. This is what blocks a normal and healthy detachment’ by young people to the detriment of everyone. On the other hand, it is true that children continue to be spoiled even when they grow up. Often from an early age they are accustomed to every comfort and convenience of a nest that is too safe and comfortable. This is not good for them because they get used to taking everything and always for granted, in this, their parents lead them to a total lack of sense of reality. It will come, Indeed, the moment of comparison with the outside e, with these attitudes, it will not be easy for them to find self-confidence in difficulties and plan a personal future.
He explains to us, in short, because a healthy society that, over time, can be kept lively and vital, it can only be the one based on healthy families?
To see, I have been a psychotherapist for many years and in all this time I have noticed and verified an incontrovertible correlation between personal health and family health. If the family is healthy there is a very high probability that the person will be healthy and, Also, if psychological problems develop in it, when the family functions well there is a greater chance of finding a path to resolution. Society is made up of people and, Therefore, in the end it's simple to sum up: healthy families produce healthy people, and healthy people help keep society cohesive, viva. Therefore the health of society is closely linked to the well-being of the family. Whoever wants to improve society must necessarily start again from the family founded on marriage.
In the book you coined a brilliant expression: “Heritage is the tomb of love”. How come?
Beh, obviously it is a play on words that is part of the common false phrase: 'Marriage is the grave of love'. I would immediately say that the latter is indeed one “fake news”. But it is a convention adopted by many. In reality, marriage is the definitive realization of love when this is lived in full awareness of self-giving. Instead, if it is the assets understood as the desire to gain economic security that guides the decision to get married, then in this case it is doomed to certain failure. Let's remember that our grandparents were actually much poorer than us, However, this did not stop them from getting married or having many children and living the era of the economic boom to the full. In short, it also takes courage to be happy.
It can also dispel clichés relating to cohabitation from a psychological point of view, type “What a difference it makes?”, “We love each other anyway”, etc.?
Right! I think that cohabitation is a choice dictated for many by mistrust and easy compromise. Today we live in the era of rejection of definitive choices. We're like “parked” in the provisional and in half measures and it is in this context that coexistence thrives. It is perfect to please the people of our time who want to play husband or wife but leave an open window open… Cohabitation seems like a marriage but it is not at all. The essential part of public and definitive commitment is missing. Man and woman are made for definitive choices and certainly not for staying there floating in mid-water. If I personally say I love a woman I must demonstrate it with a total choice because love is intrinsically total and all-encompassing.
Educate – he wrote – And “the profound and refined art of teaching to distinguish”. In the current relativist and do-gooder society, he thinks it is still a viable art?
I would say yes, because even relativists have to choose. The problem is that they don't have valid criteria for choosing well. But we are all called upon to decide thousands of times every day and we must choose whether these decisions are made well so as to give our life its full fulfillment.. Otherwise, unfortunately, we are heading towards personal failure. This is why the art of choosing expresses precisely the fullness of our being free and, Therefore, it is teaching to choose well that then guides us to distinguish. This is the heart of education. We can't do without it. E, as regards the do-goodism that, let's remember it, it's like the pathology of goodness, it translates into an attitude that no longer makes it possible to distinguish good from evil. Goodism leads to reading all the categories of goodness in a sugary and saccharine way. In this sense it is therefore clear that it leads to losing all ability to choose and, in the end, freedom.

Original title: More families, more freedom
Source: On Earth, 30/12/2018
Published on BastaBugie n. 598