“The mind and the heart”, the tribute to Luigi Onnis from the “La Collina” community

It is the homage to the brother who is no longer with us, between nostalgia and pride, and the collective tribute of friends and colleagues in the memory of common professional paths and moments spent together . The journalist Jacopo Onnis dedicates to his brother Luigi “ The voices of others. Luigi Onnis, the mind and the heart ” published by Aipsa. The book will be presented on Thursday 22 February, at 6pm, at the “La Collina” community in Serdiana . In addition to the author, psychologists Jessica Lampis and Roberta Speziale intervene. Luigi Onnis, Gigi for everyone, from Cagliari, neuropsychiatrist and family psychotherapist, professor at the “La Sapienza” University in Rome, who died in 2015 at the age of 71, dedicated himself with generosity and competence to the improvement of services dedicated to mental health . A long and passionate commitment to changing the "culture of services" in a delicate field, which requires extraordinary energy and sensitivity, in which it is necessary to deal with the stigma that has always accompanied psychiatric pathology.

The voices of others

«There is in Gigi – writes his brother Jacopo – the awareness that there is a profound ethical value in a conception of the human individual who is not without the other, who needs the other, who feeds on the gaze of the other ». The relationship with others, a very human and disinterested impulse, is the thread that unites Gigi Onnis' multiple experiences, a natural inclination, his way of being. His contribution to the development of family therapy is highlighted in the work.

The memory of the "master" Luigi Cancrini: «The non-directive way, entirely centered on the expression of emotions and empathy between family members and then with the therapist is, in my opinion, the most important legacy that Gigi has left in history of family therapy". His "militancy" in the context of the "La Collina" community is notable , where from 2005 to 2015 he accompanied the training and professional growth of the operators. «As an expert in humanity – recalls Ettore Cannavera, “architect” of the shelter in the hills of Serdiana – he guided us in composing our differences in the exclusive perspective of the analysis/understanding of the boy towards a path of emancipation which, by breaking down the “ walls of silence" and going "beyond the bars", could only happen in community".

His brother Jacopo and all those who knew Gigi Onnis find themselves in these words: « Humanity is the great legacy he left us. His was a great lesson: in therapy and in life ."