Dear Readers,
January jottings with an Italian Connection:
Avellino and Benevento, two cities in the Campania region of Italy, are in an area known as “Il Sannio”.
As you may recall, early last year I wrote about “I Bravi Sanniti” (based in the are around Benevento and Avellino) the name of a newly formed non-profit association of nurses, doctors and volunteer caregivers in the Campania region of Italy, who saw a need and are attempting to ameliorate the situation by bringing medical and home care assistance to disabled, elderly and home bound persons of any age, who cannot move freely or live in outlying areas and simply cannot hop a bus to the miles away facilities of the “Ospedale Civile di Benevento”.
The “I Bravi Sanniti Volunteers” make house calls and provide a sort of medical version of “Meals on Wheels” (where meals are prepared and delivered by volunteers to the homebound) by bringing medical services directly to the homes of those for whom a visit to the hospital or clinic is a real hardship or in some cases a near impossibility.
The caring and compassionate licensed nurses, doctors and health aide volunteers have already begun making house calls and providing free home medical services like injections, treatments, medications and personal hygiene assistance to disabled, injured, wheelchair bound, Alzheimer, cancer and severely arthritic patients, but the need is great and any financial help that you wish to donate would be greatly appreciated and of course funds for a van would be a real blessing.
“I Bravi Sanniti” and the benevolent work these volunteer health care professionals are doing was first called to my attention by Frank Bonfiglio, founding chairman of the N.S.A.F. (National Sicilian American Foundation) based in San Francisco, California and his wife Linda Bonfiglio, a native of Benevento, Italy, who along with members of the N.S.A.F. continue to support this humanitarian project.
Frank Bonfiglio, recently gave me an update on “I Bravi Sanniti” and their officers. It is written in Italian, but if you substitute advisor for “consigliere” you will also learn the names of the persons on the Advisory Committee:
“Presidente, Maria Teresa Caporaso, Giovanni Parete (vice presidente), Antimo Caiazza (tesoriere), Salvatore Iannotti (sedia), Giorgio Carlo Nista (consigliere), Franco Santucci (consigliere), Giovanni Attanasio (consigliere), Anna Principe (consigliere), Franco Bonfiglio (consigliere), Patrizia Orso (consigliere), Antonia Voli (consigliere), Olimpia Zampetti (consigliere), Luca Mazzone (consigliere). A Salvatore Iannotti ed a Franco Bonfiglio è stato affidato l’incarico di curare il rapporto con gli italiani negli USA.”
A statement of goals and purpose: “Lo scopo è quello di prestare assistenza gratuita ai propri associati, mettendo a disposizione, da subito, una serie di professionisti: medici specialisti, psicologi, biologi, sociologi, assistenti sociali, infermieri professionali ed amministrativi. L’associazione che non ha scopo di lucro, oltre ad assistere i bisognosi di cure mediche punta la sua attenzione nel sociale attraverso il dialogo per meglio conoscere nel concreto i veri disagi sociali che affliggono la popolazione Sannita ed è per questo motivo che sono state inserite le figure professionali di assistenti sociali e psicologi.”
The “ I Bravi Sanniti”, non- profit (associazione senza scopo di lucro) is also focusing on early detection and prevention of ailments which can greatly impact quality of life and have already hosted a “ Convegno” on women’s health ie “Salute e Benessere-Psico della Donna” with prevention information on cancerous breasts and ovarian tumors. Therapy and support for women with breast cancer and “La prevenzione del tumore al seno” and “La prevenzione del tumore dell’apparato riproduttivo” were among the many topics discussed, followed by a question and answer session with health care professionals.
If you wish to ensure that this worthwhile endeavor continues to expand make your check payable to “I Bravi Sanniti” and send it to the attention of “I Bravi Sanniti”, Via Baldassare N. 112, San Giorgio del Sannio, Benevento, Italia 83010. (Tel. 329-5465287).
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Benevento. The name has been on the shelf of every bar in Italy and on my radar for years, thanks to the bottles of Liquore Strega, which I had long observed in homes of my parents’ “paesani”. Manufactured in Benevento, the graphic medal bedecked yellow labels on the bottles of Liquore Strega inform“Della premiata ditta Giuseppe Alberto, Presso la Stazione Ferroviaria” (across from the train station) since the late 1880’s.
Benevento, although located in the Campania region of Italy, is located inland and to describe its location as “near Naples” is a bit of a stretch as it is roughly 60 km from Naples and by bus is an hour-and-a-half trip. Benevento was once an important Roman settlement, a key point on the Via Appia between Rome and Brindisi and as such a thriving trading town and the farthest point from Rome to be colonized when it was founded in 278 BC.
The mountainous province is home to some of southern Italy’s most interesting ancient Roman monuments, such as the well preserved, ornate 2nd century Roman arch in Benevento, built in honor of Trajan, and the Roman theatre ruins built during Hadrian’s reign.
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Incidentally, one member of the “I Bravi Sanniti” Board of Directors, Prof. Salvatore Iannotti, MD (Psicoterapeuta, Ipnoterapeuta, Sessuologo clinico, Ginecologo, già Assistant Prof. Yale University USA, Founder and President of the Ernest L. Rossi Foundation (USA) e della Fondazione Iannotti – Rossi (F.I.R.) Italia) collaborated with Ernest Lawrence Rossi, Ph.D. on a book “A Discourse with our Genes” the psychological and cultural Genomics of Therapeutic Hypnosis and Psycotheraphy.
A Discourse with our Genes, simultaneously published in English, and Italian (“Discorso tra Geni”) seeks to create the basis for a long, futuristic path of original scientific projects.
The principal themes of the author concern the recovery through the integration of mind, body, and spirit, gathering the fundamental concepts of Biology, Medicine, Neuroscience and Psychology in a new philosophy of life through the exploration of the deep meaning and the amazing implications of Psychological Genomics on creativity in daily life as well as in the arts, culture, spiritual practices, and psychotherapy. The author offers us, in addition, the tools to improve our vital condition, health, and mood, teaching us how to experience “a happy day”.
Part of the proceeds from the sale of the book will be utilized for research programs promoted by both the American foundation E.L.R.F. (Ernest Lawrence Rossi Foundation) and the Italian F.I.R. (Foundation Iannotti- Rossi). The major focus of both foundations at this time is to facilitate and support neuroscience research for the prevention and healing of mind-body and psychosomatic disorders. For more info: San Lorenzo Maggiore, Via Castagna 72, Benevento. Dr. Salvatore Iannotti, tel. 334 99 99 525; e- mail:
Ernest Lawrence Rossi, Ph.D, was born in the U.S.A. but his roots are in the province of Benevento.
Ernest Lawrence Rossi’s Grandfather Ernest and his wife Raffaella came from the tiny village of San Lorenzo Maggiore, 1200 feet above sea level in the Benevento province of Italy, where the family had lived for many generations as small farmers subsisting by raising vegeta- bles, grapes, olives, and figs.
Grandfather Ernest, his wife, and their first born 6 year old son, Angelo (who was later to become Ernest Lawrence’s father) immigrated to America in the early 1900s. Life was very difficult economically for the young family. Young Angelo loved to read but his education ended without graduation from high school because he had to go work to help support the growing family. He married Mary De Libero when they were in their late teens. Ernest Lawrence Rossi was born a year later in the great Depression of 1933.
One of Ernest’s earliest memo- ries was when his grandfather suffered a very serious stroke at the age of about 45 that left him permanently crippled. The family could not afford a wheelchair so grandfather had to sit all day in a stout chair with cushions specially built for him by his eldest son, Angelo.
With grandfather incapacitat- ed, the whole family, now with 5 children, all had to go to work. Grandfather, handicapped as he was, became Ernest’s first baby sitter. Ernest remembers playing happily alone about the house and fetching grandfather a glass of water or following other such simple requests.
Grandfather told the family when they all returned from work at the end of the day that Ernest usually behaved well but every now and then he “escaped” when he ran out of the house to explore the mysterious and forbidden far away territory across the street in the little town of Shelton, Connecticut.
A therapeutic ritual soon developed around grandfather’s primitive efforts at self-rehabilitation. On many weekends the family gathered together to assess the value of yet another patent medicine that was reputed to possess miraculous healing powers. Little Ernest, about 4 or 5 years old, watched with fascination, as grandfather was first administered a few huge tablespoonfuls of medicine. Then there was a dramatic pause as grandfather smacked his lips from the usually huge alcoholic content of the “medicine”. Grandfather would then make a heroic effort to stand-up with the use of his cane, which was actually a broomstick with a handle made by his son Angelo.
With the excited and reverently praying family standing in a close circle around him, grandfather would then dramatically drop his cane and take a few lumbering steps unaided. He would pause momentarily as if suddenly stricken by a dark angel; the family would gasp audibly and move in to embrace him as he inevitably collapsed in awkward, uncoordinated, despair. Once again, the family thought, the “medicine” had not worked.
From our current neuroscience perspective on rehabilitative medicine, however, we now know that grandfather had not failed entirely. Rather, 70 years ago there was not enough understanding of how to facilitate stroke rehabilitation with persistent physical exercise and moti- vated emotional effort. If grandfather had the constant support of a modern physical rehabilitation team that understood the principles of activity-dependent gene expression and brain plas- ticity, grandfather undoubtedly would have recovered his ability to walk.
Dr. Rossi in 1968 became a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, AMERICAN BOARD OF EXAMINERS IN PROFESSIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Psychotherapy in 1980 and an Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Psychotherapy in 2003.
In 2004 the Thomas P. Wall Award for Excellence in Teaching Clinical Hypnosis. “As an author, researcher, teacher and innovator, Dr. Rossi has advocated the benefits of clinical hypnosis, has raised the bar of scientific excellence for optimizing performance and healing in psychotherapy, therapeutic hypnosis, the arts, humanities and spiritual traditions”.
Author of “The Psychology of Mind-Body Healing: New Concepts of Therapeutic Hypnosis”, as well as the author of “The Psychobiology of Gene Expression: Neuroscience and Neurogenesis in Hypnosis and the Healing Arts”.
