Carlo Brutti and Rita Parlani Brutti

Claudio Peri has recently delivered presentations on “The experience of God in Jacopone da Todi” to the Aberastury Institute of Psychoanalytic Psychosomatics in Perugia.  The founders of the Aberastury Institute, Carlo Brutti and Rita Parlani Brutti, are psychoanalysts and psychotherapists (Carlo is also a specialist in paediatrics and child neuropsychiatry) with distinguished careers, both academically and in management of Psychiatric Services in the Umbria Region.  Carlo is originally from the Todi area where, in the 1950s, he was a friend of the young Claudio Peri.  Beyond the renewal of an old friendship, however, Claudio recognised in Carlo and Rita a genuine interest in Jacopone's poetry as a profound revelation of the human soul – unlike other psychologists who have written about Jacopone with little knowledge and no empathy.

We asked Carlo and Rita to tell us something about their interest in Jacopone:

We greet all the friends of the Newsletter with warm cordiality!  Entering into dialogue with you makes us happy and honours us greatly.

Andy asked us: Why would psychoanalysts organise seminars on the figure of Jacopone da Todi in their Institute? What relationship have we been able to establish between Psychoanalysis and Mysticism?  To us, having rigorously practiced clinical psychoanalysis for many years – after long training – this does not seem strange (perhaps the majority of our colleagues think differently...)  However, let us try to briefly elaborate our response:

Whoever chooses to dedicate their knowledge and skills to the service of how children should be helped to grow well (educating), or to those who suffer because they are sick (curing), or to the community as a whole to guide its behaviour (governing), commit themselves to carrying out tasks beyond anyone's abilities (this is what Freud also thought), without ever shying away from them.  Anyone who undertakes such endeavours can only – whether they know it or not – start from a perception:

–  a perception of the world (a weltanschauung), that is, from one's own vision of the universe, in its multifaceted beauty;

–  a perception of the human being, in its psycho-physical unity;

–  a perception of the divine, that reveals the ultimate meaning of life (giving us signals that are otherwise hidden).

The entire philosophy of one of our great friends and teachers, Raimon Panikkar, revolves around this perspective, which he called "cosmotheandric" [cosmos+theos+andros, the world+God+the human being].  In essence, anyone preparing to treat a sick person (who is always sick not only in their organs but also in their spirit) must realise that one is called to deal with those two dimensions (body and spirit) and their peculiar inter-in-dependence.

The reunion with Claudio – after 70 years – found us mysteriously prepared to receive Jacopone's great message.  Together with Panikkar, Jacopone tells us – beyond all reductionist ideologies – that human beings, if they manage to articulate both the human and the mystical (which is the summit of the human), can draw on that richness which made the life and figure of Jacopone so luminous.

A big thank you and best regards

Carlo and Rita Brutti,     Perugia